Master in Chemistry

Due to its central position among hard sciences, chemistry opens up extremely broad possibilities, with links to biochemistry, medicine, geology, physics, or biology. Creating materials with new properties, developing alternative energy sources, synthesising new medicines, ensuring high quality in foodstuffs, and monitoring and reducing pollution are all examples of the challenges that chemists take on. Today, chemistry is the cornerstone of many sustainable development topics. ULB's Chemistry Department is fully aware of these challenges and trains students to analyse new societal problems and call upon their creative potential to solve them. The goal of the Master in Chemistry is to complete the basic training provided in the Bachelor programme, and develop the students’ analytical skills and autonomy.

Lecture classes, practical activities, hands-on training, personal assignments, projects.

ULB's Chemistry Department is ideally situated, both geographically and strategically. Located in Europe’s capital, at the heart of a vast network of chemical industries, the department provides high-level training through direct contact with SMEs and major players in the industry on the one hand, and with cutting-edge academic circles on the other hand.

Moreover, due to its international scientific reputation, it strives to provide excellent training in a multidisciplinary academic context, in line with the major technological and environmental issues of our time.

At the Master level, student mobility is encouraged in the form of work placements in private companies, either in Belgium or abroad.

Chemists play an active role in our society. The Master programme includes content targeting various professional activities (industries, research and teaching). In the professional world, graduates of this programme put their knowledge and skills into practice as chemists in research laboratories and production units, or as scientific experts and advisors. They are often hired in leading-edge chemical industries, in which they can quickly reach senior positions.

The Master programme's curriculum allows students to:

• Develop specialised interdisciplinary knowledge
• Understand advanced concepts in the various branches of chemistry
• Acquire an interdisciplinary culture
• Conduct original research in a specialised branch of chemistry
• Show innovation and creativity
• Apply skills and knowledge to autonomously develop and manage a project
• Solve complex problems
• Identify risks and anticipate the consequences of decisions
• Integrate multidisciplinary aspects into project management
• Identify the potential for technological developments in a given research project in the field of chemistry (research focus)
• Recognise the industrial and economic importance of intellectual property (professional focus)
• Be an active partner of multidisciplinary projects in a complex industrial context (scientific, economic, environmental, etc.) (professional focus)
• Transpose the knowledge and methods acquired into various objects of study

ULB is the only comprehensive university located in the capital of Europe. Almost one third of its students are foreigners, a major asset that makes ULB the most open university in Belgium.

The Chemistry Department includes various research groups that are internationally recognised, whose works were rewarded by several prestigious prizes. ULB's Chemistry Department is the only one in Belgium that has received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The Chemistry Department also benefits from the scientific activities (symposia, conferences) organised by the Solvay Institutes of Physics and Chemistry located within the University.