University Foundation

EnglishNederlandsfrançais

FR

NL

Other names:

• Universitaire Stichting
• Fondation Universitaire

History

The University Foundation is an institution of public utility created by the law of 6 July and the royal decree of 31 August 1920. This institution originated from two organisations set up during the first world war (1914-1918) to deal with the economic crisis caused by the German invasion. On the one hand, the National Relief and Food Committee (Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation (CNSA)) was endowed by Ernest Solvay and organised by Émile Francqui, and on the other hand, the Commission for the Relief of Belgium (CRB) was created and organised by the American businessman Herbert Hoover.As early as 1916, Francqui set up a 'University Foundation Commission' composed of members of the various Belgian universities and tasked with considering the use of the remaining funds of the CNSA (the majority of which had been provided by the Belgian state) with a view to reviving higher education after the conflict. In 1919, Francqui and Herbert Hoover, president of the CRB, signed an agreement within the framework of this commission which granted the four universities, the École des mines de Mons and the École coloniale supérieure of Antwerp an increase in their assets. This agreement also provides an endowment to two foundations: the University Foundation and the Commission for Relief in Belgium Educational Foundation in New York. The bill creating the University Foundation was tabled in the Senate on 24 April 1920 by the Minister of Science and Arts, Jules Destrée, and adopted on 6 July 1920. It opened its doors in 1922, in the premises it still occupies, at 11, Rue d'Egmont (Brussels-City).

The first president of the University Foundation was Émile Francqui. Under his direction the institution adopted the following programme:

• The financing of travel grants and loans to students from disadvantaged families
• Subsidising research centres and laboratories in Belgian universities to hire young researchers
• Coordination of scientific research in our country (interface between universities and the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga for the analysis of radium properties, updating of university libraries, etc.), supplemented by financial support for scientific publications
• The organisation of a university club "à l'anglaise" (with a restaurant and a hotel) set up as a meeting centre for Belgian and foreign professors and researchers.

Subsequently, the university foundation actively participated in the creation of several scientific institutions and organisations.
Here is a list of the main ones:

• The creation of the FNRS in 1928
• The creation of the Francqui Foundation in 1932
• The Hoover Foundation for the devellopment of the University of Brussels
• The Hoover Foundation for the devellopment of the University of Leuven
• The national foundation for the fight against cancer.
• The Institute of Tropical Medicine
• The INEAC - NILCO
• The Institut des parcs nationaux au Congo belge
• The IRSAC - IWOCA
• la Jeunesse belge à l'étranger
• la Biermans-Lapôtre Foundation

After the Second World War, the government provided an endowment of 100 million to restore the Foundation's finances.

Presidents

• de 1920-1935 : Émile Francqui
• de 1935 à1970 : Jean Willems
• de 1970 à 1979, the presidency is entrusted alternately to each rector of the 6 main universities of the country for a one-year term.
• de 1979 à 1982 : le Baron André Vlerick
• de 1982 à 2001: Baron Gilbert de Landsheere
• 2001-: J. Willems

Bibliography

• The website of the university foundation, consulted on 17 january 2023.
• Website of Belspo, last consulted on 17 january 2023.
• Despy-Meyer, André, Institutions et réseaux, in Robert Halleux, Geert Vanpaemel, Jan Vandersmissen en Andrée Despy-Meyer (red.), Geschiedenis van de wetenschappen in België 1815-2000, Brussel: Dexia/La Renaissance du livre, 2001, vol. 1 p. 82.
• Ranieri L., Émile Francqui ou l’intelligence créatrice, Paris, Duculot, 1985.