Brussels research journal celebrates decade of self-study

It’s a cold afternoon in downtown Brussels and a celebration is taking place at Tentation, the cultural centre famous for its Latin dance sessions. The occasion is the 10th anniversary of the research journal Brussels Studies, and the fifth anniversary of the Brussels Studies Institute.

So, there is a very Brussels atmosphere. The people are friendly and all seem to know one another. They chat energetically, drink bad coffee and eat large slices of cake.

The presentations switch freely (if not always fluently) from French to Dutch to English and back again, and a small protest breaks out when an all-male panel takes the stage. “Bravo! Not a single woman!” calls a voice from the audience, followed by a smattering of applause and an embarrassed explanation from the moderator.

A large turn-out and the strong sense of community are signs of success for both journal and institute, which are closely connected but separate initiatives. The journal was set up in December 2006 with the aim of collecting and disseminating academic research on Brussels.

“It’s a scientific journal like any other, but it’s freely available and aims to reach a wider audience than a typical scientific journal,” says Michel Hubert, director of Brussels Studies and a sociologist at the city’s Saint-Louis University.

Broad vision

The first decade saw 123 articles published online, each in English, French and Dutch, clocking up 750,000 downloads. The two most popular articles couldn’t be more different. One is a study of the stations proposed for the Regional Express Railway through Brussels, written in 2012 by Kevin Lebrun and Frédéric Dobruszkes. The other is Sven Steffens’ 2007 article on popular place names, past and present, in Molenbeek.

Other subjects covered in the journal range from aircraft noise to housing, from the languages used in Brussels to Muslim representation in city politics. Socio-economic changes on the border between Brussels and Flemish Brabant have been scrutinised, as have those strange migrants known as Brussels expats. Another study compared Brussels and Washington DC as federal capitals.

The younger Brussels Studies Institute (BSI), which publishes much of its work in the journal, brings together university researchers to work on projects examining different aspects of the city. It was founded by Brussels’ three main universities – Saint-Louis and the two free universities, VUB and ULB – but also involves others with an interest in the city, such as the University of Leuven and the Catholic University of Louvain.

“We have 25 research centres affiliated with the Institute, from geographers and historians to political scientists and linguists,” says Joost Vaesen, the director of BSI and a historian at VUB. “The added value of the BSI is that we can tackle certain issues and societal challenges from different points of view.”

Nothing illustrates this better than the Brussels Centre Observatory, which has been set up to study the controversial pedestrian zone in the city centre. Over four years it will look at the project’s history, its geographical and architectural aspects, and of course its impact on transport and mobility.

Fresh perspectives

The BSI’s core funding comes from the government of the Brussels-Capital Region, while individual projects are paid for by public, non-profit or private sponsors. Some projects have a single sponsor while others involve several organisations pooling their resources to produce information they can share.

One such is the research chair on companies and sustainable mobility, a four-year programme funded by 12 private-sector organisations. While focused on commercial interests, the BSI has been careful to protect the project’s academic independence, setting up a steering committee to oversee the work.

“It is one-third academics, one-third funders and one-third stakeholders – such as the public transport authorities and civil society,” Vaesen explains. “So we have an organised dialogue and come to a shared vision, and, on the basis of that shared vision, the researchers set to work.”

Other on-going projects include a mapping study of Brussels’ youth, an enquiry into student housing and a task force looking at the city during the war years of 1914-18.

How the research results are used is usually up to the sponsors, but one study has had a particular significance for the universities. This looked at Brussels as a centre for higher education, finding a surprising 51 institutions represented in the city, from the three main universities to private schools and American branch campuses.

“We discovered that Brussels is home to the most students in Belgium,” says Serge Jaumain, chair of BSI and a professor of history at ULB. Most people would say it was Leuven, whose university had just over 57,000 students at last count, but the figures told a different story. “Today you have around 100,000 students in Brussels, but in a population of 1.1 million you don’t see the students so obviously.”

Photo: Siska Gremmelprez/Belga