VLIR-UOS ICP Connect Programmes: All 20 Explained

VIVES University of Applied Sciences, Bruges. Hospitality and tourism management with practical industry training built in; Bruges is a major tourist city, so you learn inside a live industry. Students choose between two specialisations, Hospitality Management or Culinary Arts. Right for professionals working in, or heading for, the hospitality sector at home.

Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Geel. Software development, data applications and AI-oriented computing for professional practice — less theoretical than a research-university computer science degree, more focused on building working systems. Geel is a small town with lower living costs than Bruges, Ghent or Antwerp. Right for IT professionals or recent computer science graduates who want European credentials in software or data systems.

Agricultural policy, rural livelihoods, land governance and food systems from a development perspective. This is not an agronomy or crop science programme but a social-science degree on how rural economies work and why they fail: land rights, value chains, agricultural finance and project design for rural contexts. An international programme with possible mobility to partner universities.

Right for: professionals in agriculture ministries, NGOs focused on rural livelihoods, and researchers studying agrarian change.

Fish and shellfish production, water quality, sustainable seafood systems and aquatic animal health. Strongly laboratory and science oriented: freshwater and marine species, production system design, disease management and the environmental sustainability of aquaculture.

Right for: fisheries professionals, aquaculture researchers and government fisheries officials from coastal or water-rich countries. Expect practical lab work throughout.

Disease surveillance, outbreak investigation, public health data analysis and study design — how disease spreads through populations and how to design studies that give reliable answers. Quantitative methods, statistics and data are central. Not a clinical programme.

Right for: public health workers, health ministry staff and researchers who work with disease data. You need to be comfortable with statistics from day one.

Food processing, food safety, quality control and food systems innovation: how food behaves during processing, how contamination happens, how to prevent it and how to improve quality. Laboratory work is central, and the programme runs across KU Leuven and Ghent University.

Right for: professionals in food processing, government food safety agencies or food research institutes. A background in food science, chemistry, biology or chemical engineering is expected.

Ecology, management and policy for oceans, lakes, rivers and coasts: aquatic ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity assessment, pollution and remediation, fisheries management and the policy frameworks for water bodies. A multi-university programme, so expect to study at more than one campus.

Right for: environmental scientists, fisheries managers, coastal zone management staff and researchers working on lakes or rivers.

Four specialisations — Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Quantitative Epidemiology and Data Science — but only the first three are open to ICP Connect scholarship applicants. Technically demanding: mathematics, probability and statistical computing are the foundation. The programme is accredited by the Royal Statistical Society, and the bioinformatics and quantitative epidemiology tracks connect directly to public health and biomedical research.

Right for: researchers and analysts working with health or scientific data. A strong mathematical background is required; check the programme’s current English requirement.

An interdisciplinary approach to sustainability across environment, society, economy and policy, drawing on natural sciences, social sciences and economics. It suits candidates whose work sits between sectors — climate adaptation, environmental governance, sustainable urban development or development finance — rather than a single technical specialism.

Right for: policy professionals, civil society workers and researchers on climate, environment or development challenges. Its breadth means your motivation letter needs a sharp focus.

Traffic engineering, road safety policy, crash analysis and mobility planning, covering both engineering and behaviour: infrastructure design, speed management, enforcement strategy and measuring what works. Practical and policy-connected.

Right for: transport ministry staff, urban planners and road safety researchers from countries with high road death rates, where the development case almost writes itself.

Hydrology, water supply and sanitation, flood management, drainage and irrigation engineering — the physical science of water movement and the engineering and planning of systems that manage it. Taught in Leuven and Brussels.

Right for: civil engineers, government water authorities and water professionals dealing with scarcity, flooding or poor sanitation. A strong engineering background is expected.

Nutrition policy, food security, malnutrition and food systems traced from agricultural production to health outcomes. It covers both the science of nutrition and the structural factors that make good nutrition accessible or not at population scale — a genuinely development-oriented frame.

Right for: nutritionists, public health professionals and food policy workers in countries where malnutrition remains a major public health challenge.

Land and groundwater, land tenure, spatial planning, environmental management and urban land problems. Year one is at Ghent University; in year two you follow either Land and Groundwater Management (Ghent) or Urban Land Engineering (VUB), and you register at the university of your chosen track.

Right for: land administrators, spatial planners, cadastre professionals and rural development workers dealing with land tenure security and land governance.

VUB with international partners (Mundus tropicalis). Tropical ecology, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management — rainforests, savannahs, wetlands and coral reefs — through conservation science, ecosystem services and sustainable management. Part of the programme is put into practice in Kenya and the Philippines with partners from the global South and North.

Deadline warning: TROPIMUNDO closes months before the other programmes. In the 2026–27 cycle it opened on 3 October 2025 and closed on 30 November 2025. No 2027–28 date has been published; confirm on vliruos.be when the call opens.

Right for: environmental scientists, conservation biologists and forestry professionals from tropical countries.

Nematodes in agriculture and the environment: plant parasites, soil health, biological pest control and soil ecology. Nematode management is a significant challenge in tropical agriculture, and Belgian expertise here is internationally recognised. Note its earlier deadline: 18 January in the 2026–27 cycle.

Right for: agricultural researchers, plant pathologists and soil scientists working on crop pests or soil health — candidates with a real background in the field, not those choosing it as a fallback.

Urbanisation, housing policy, urban planning and spatial development in the Global South: informal settlements, infrastructure deficits, land tenure and inclusive planning. For practitioners who want to deepen their analytical and policy capacity. Check whether the programme asks for a portfolio.

Right for: urban planners, architects, housing authority staff and local government planners with prior experience in planning or architecture.

Monitoring and evaluation methods, programme design, results frameworks and accountability in development finance — how to design programmes that can be evaluated and run evaluations that produce useful findings, not compliance paperwork.

Right for: M&E professionals, development agency staff and NGO programme managers with experience in programme design or evaluation.

Political institutions, public administration reform, decentralisation, accountability and governance in development, looking at both formal institutions and informal power structures.

Right for: government officials, public administration professionals and policy researchers working on institutional reform, decentralisation or service delivery.

Global trade, international economics, migration, development finance and the geopolitics of development — how trade agreements, capital flows, technology transfer and migration shape development paths.

Right for: researchers and professionals in trade, economic policy or development finance who want a theoretically grounded framework.

The social and cultural side of development: fieldwork methods, qualitative research design and anthropological analysis of development projects — why interventions fail at community level, and how culture, identity, social organisation and local knowledge shape outcomes.

Right for: social scientists, NGO workers and researchers in community-based development, especially those who have run fieldwork at home.