There are several universities in the city of Brussels two of which are considered as the main ones – the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

The Université libre de Bruxelles(ULB) (English: Free University of Brussels) is a French-speaking university. There are permanently about 21 thousand students studying there like 30% of which come from abroad. That makes ULB an international university open to students from Europe and the world.

The ULB was established in 1831 by a group of Masonic artists and scientists. It was the perfect time for a university to be established there as after the nine provinces broke away from the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830 – Brussels was promoted to the rank of a capital, but still had no university. ULB got its present name “The Université libre de Bruxelles” in 1836.

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) from Dutch just like Université libre de Bruxelles from French means “Free University in Brussels” in English. It is a Flemish university located in the south-east part of Brussels. As the names of the both universities mean one and the same thing it is an official policy that those universities use their real names but no abbreviations or translations because of potential confusions. In fact Vrije Universiteit Brussel was formed by splitting of Université libre de Bruxelles in 1970. Its founder was a Flemish layer named Pierre-Theodore Verhaegen who wanted to establishe a university which to be independent from the state and church.

VUB is organized into 8 faculties including classics, life sciences, natural sciences, humanities, social sciences and engineering. The university provides bachelor, master and doctoral education. VUB is also top-214 research-oriented institute among all universities worldwide.