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Master in Chemistry

Master in Chemistry

The 2024-2025 programme is subject to change. It is provided for information purposes only.

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    • Programme title
      Master in Chemistry
    • Programme mnemonic
      MA-CHIM
    • Programme organised by
      • Faculty of Sciences
    • Degree type
      Master 120 credits
    • Tier
      2nd cycle
    • Field and branch of study
      Sciences and technics/Sciences
    • Schedule type
      Daytime
    • Languages of instruction
      french
    • Theoretical programme duration
      2 years
    • Campus
      Plaine/Solbosch
    • Category / Topic
      Sciences and technics - Sciences
    • Jury President
      Gwilherm EVANO
    • Jury Secretaries
      Yannick DE DECKER and Thomas DONEUX

    Presentation

    Details

    General information

    Degree type

    Master 120 credits

    Theoretical programme duration

    2 years

    Learning language(s)

    french

    Schedule type

    Daytime

    Campus

    Plaine/Solbosch

    Category(ies) - Topic(s)

    Sciences and technics - Sciences

    Organising faculty(s) and university(ies)

    Succeed in your studies

    Choose

    The information and guidance counsellors at the InfOR-études service will help you choose your studies throughout the year.

    Succeed

    Take part in preparatory courses or get help to succeed, before or during your studies.

    Get help

    Apply for financial aid, look for accommodation or a student job, get support for your specific needs.

    Presentation

    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.

    Exchanges—lasting 6 to 12 months—with other Belgian or foreign universities can be organised.

    ULB has concluded partnerships with 10 secondary schools and around 20 companies, research laboratories or centres, offering attractive opportunities for work placements. Many exchange opportunities with foreign universities are available (see the list provided by the DRI)

    https://www.ulb.be/en/mobility/international

    One fundamental goal of the Master in Chemistry is to give students a deep understanding of the basic concepts used in chemical sciences, and how they interact. The programme places emphasis on teaching autonomy, with personal projects and a Master's dissertation to be defended at the end of the second year.

    The curriculum includes both theoretical and practical teachings. Six series of lectures must be chosen amongst the seven following:

    • Polymer chemistry
    • Macroscopic physical chemistry: from self-assembling to self-organisation,
    • Strategies for organic synthesis,
    • Computational approaches to the states of matter,
    • Chemistry of interfaces and nanostructures,
    • Chemistry and structure of biological macromolecules,
    • Environmental chemistry and chemical risks.

    Students also choose a number of elective courses in a field of interest, and complete a research-oriented dissertation in the second year, working within one of the department's research units.

    Access conditions

    Programme

    One fundamental goal of the Master in Chemistry is to give students a deep understanding of the basic concepts used in chemical sciences, and how they interact. The programme places emphasis on teaching autonomy, with personal projects and a Master's dissertation to be defended at the end of the second year.

    The curriculum includes both theoretical and practical teachings. Six series of lectures must be chosen amongst the seven following:

    • Polymer chemistry

    • Macroscopic physical chemistry: from self-assembling to self-organisation,

    • Strategies for organic synthesis,

    • Computational approaches to the states of matter,

    • Chemistry of interfaces and nanostructures,

    • Chemistry and structure of biological macromolecules,

    • Environmental chemistry and chemical risks.

    Students also choose a number of elective courses in a field of interest, and complete a research-oriented dissertation in the second year, working within one of the department's research units.

    What's next ?

    Prospects

    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.

    A Master's degree in Chemistry opens up job opportunities in the following areas:

    • Industrial or academic research
    • State-run services: crime laboratories, heritage conservation laboratories, health services, etc.
    • Teaching
    • Production
    • Analysis
    • Technical and commercial sectors
    • Health

    Chemists can be viewed as architects, creating new molecules, developing new materials, developing and optimising manufacturing processes, contributing to improving the quality of life in many areas (medicine, environment, energy, food, cosmetics, etc.).

    Activity sectors

    Chemical companies (petrochemical industry, polymers, fertilisers, fine chemistry, specialties, paints, pigments, oleochemistry, catalysts, etc.)

    • Pharmaceutical companies
    • Consumer goods (cleaners, glues, cosmetics, etc.)
    • Environment, recycling
    • Chemical engineering
    • Analysis and control laboratories
    • Research and development
    • Teaching
    • Academic sector (research and teaching in universities and higher education institutions)
    • Federal institutions

    Types of functions:

    Research and development, intellectual property, product stewardship, project leading, etc.
    The chemist can be viewed as an architect, creating new molecules, developing new materials, developing and optimizing manufacturing processes, contributing to the improvement of the quality of life in many areas (medicine, environment, energy, food, cosmetics,…)