International facts and figures

International students

Each year more and more international students choose Ghent University for their study. More than 7.000 foreign students (15% of the total student population), including exchange students, studied at Ghent University during academic year 2022-2023.

The top 5 of European countries of origin are the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. The non-EU countries are represented by a strong contingency from Asia: China, South-Korea, Iran, India and Turkey.

Receiving the bulk of foreign students are the faculties of Sciences, Bioscience Engineering and Engineering and Architecture.

Erasmus Exchange students

The Erasmus+ Programme is the most widely known programme for student and staff mobility in Europe and is the major funding programme for exchanges at Ghent University.

During the academic year 2022-2023 more than 1.772 Ghent University students spent part of their study abroad (1.169 of them in the framework of Erasmus+). The most prominent destinations are France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and Germany.

Every year Ghent University also welcomes incoming exchange students.  In 2022-2023 more than 1.000 exchange students (and counting, there is an application deadline 15/11) from 55 countries choose Ghent University for their study. Top countries of origin are Spain, Italy, Germany, China and France.

PhD

In 2022-2023 Ghent University hosts 5.855 PhD students of whom 47 % had a non-Belgian nationality.

Our international PhD students are mostly active in the exact sciences: Engineering and Architecture, Bioscience Engineering  and Sciences are the dominant faculties. The majority originates from China, Italy, the Netherlands, Iran and India.

International employees

Ghent University employs around 9.000 and 6.000 staff members are employed at the University Hospital. Up to 12% of this number is of a non-Belgian nationality.

Rankings

What do rankings mean? How does Ghent University perform? Further reading...