Doctorates honoris causa

Louvain has been awarding the doctorate honoris causa since 1874.

For a long time, the award was given by the faculties. In 1951, King Baudouin became the university’s first doctor honoris causa..

The distinction was initially intended to reward academic merit : discoveries, important teaching work, the foundation of a new discipline. A good example is Alexander Fleming, promoted to the rank of doctor honoris causa by the Faculté de medicine (Faculty of Medicine) in 1945.

Nevertheless, Queen Elizabeth was also made doctor honoris causa of medicine in 1927! Here, the award was intended to celebrate the resistance of Belgian sovereigns during the First World War through remembering the hôpital de l'Océan in La Panne right next to the Yser front. Albert Ist received an award the same day from the Faculté des sciences exactes (Faculty of Exact Science).
  
After the 1914-1918 war, the doctorate honoris causa provided a way to celebrate the leaders of the allied victory (Clémenceau, Marshal Foch) and to thank those who lent their support to rebuilding the severely damaged university. US President W. Wilson received his doctoral diploma in 1919 in the highly evocative ruins of the Halles universitaires. The months that followed the end of the Second World War saw doctorates honoris causa awarded to Charles De Gaulle, Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt, General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery.

Robert Schumann and Konrad Adenauer became UCL doctors honoris causa in 1958.

Since the middle of the 1980s, the UCL doctorates honoris causa ceremony has been combined with the 2nd February celebration. The award now has a new aim: to link the university with men and women, close to home and further afield, from every continent, who are striving, through science, culture, commitment, to make things better for the human race. 

The doctors honoris causa of the University