Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (or K. U. Leuven, or in English Catholic University of Leuven - also the translated name of its French-speaking sister university) is a Flemish university, located in the town of Leuven in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking (northern) region of Belgium. It was founded in 1425 by pope Martin V and is now the oldest Catholic university in the world still in existence. In its early days this university was modelled on the universities of Paris, Cologne and Vienna. It is also the home university of the 16th century humanist Desiderius Erasmus, of Gerard Mercator, father of modern cartography, Andreas Vesalius, father of modern anatomy, and Georges Lemaître, father of the Big Bang theory.
The main campus of the university is located in Leuven, while the French-speaking Université catholique de Louvain is in Louvain-la-Neuve. Until 1968, there was only one University of Leuven, where both Dutch and French (although mostly French) were used as languages. After repeated protests from Flemish Nationalists, however, the University was split. The Dutch University of Leuven remained in the city of Leuven, while the French speaking Université Catholique de Louvain moved to the newly built campus of Louvain-la-Neuve, south of the linguistic border dividing Belgium.
K.U. Leuven is a strongly research oriented university (notwithstanding it has more than 25,000 students), and its ambition is to be among the top European universities in terms of scientific output. For instance, Rijndael, the cipher chosen as the Advanced Encryption Standard, was developed at K. U. Leuven.
The university is a member of the Coimbra Group and the LERU.
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