Universities, we often hear, should both function and behave more like business enterprises. Is this a welcome trend that will free us from much waste, complacency and arbitrariness? Or is it a trend to be fiercely resisted because it would corrupt the very core of what a university should ambition to be?

Programme 

(click here to download programme)

Part 1: 14.00 - 15.45

• Keynote presentations:
  • Mathias Dewatripont, professor of economics at the ULB, chairman of the Solvay Brussels School of Business and Economics
  • Jo Ritzen (president of the Board of the University of Maastricht, former Minister of education for the Netherlands)
  • Prepared interpellations from the floor

Part 2: 16.15 - 18.00

• Challenges: Bart Pattyn, director of the Centre of Ethics of the K.U.Leuven
• Panel:
  • Andreu Mas-Colell, until recently secretary general of the European Research council, former minister of higher education for Catalonia
  • Yves Roggeman, member of the cabinet of the minister of higher education for the Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles, former vice-rector of the U.LB.
  • André Oosterlinck, chairman of the Associatie K.U.Leuven, former rector of the K.U.Leuven
• Concluding remarks
  Philippe Van Parijs, UCL, KULeuven & Harvard, coordinator of the Ethical Forum. (document)