Environmental bioengineering (120 ECTS)

Programme content

Bioscience engineers in Environmental Sciences and Technologies ensure the management, preservation and rational use of renewable natural resources as well as anthropized and natural ecosystems.

During his or her training, this engineer learns to evaluate, model, exploit, manage, develop and restore natural resources, the environment and rural and peri-urban areas, in accordance with the principles of sustainable development.

The teachings:

During their training, students have a choice between several coherent paths that allow them to approach, both conceptually and by practical application, the following subjects, grouped into five areas:

Understanding the environment

• Soil constituents and environment, pedogenesis and international standards, applied regional geomorphopedology, spatial analysis and soil mapping
• Hydrogeology and aquifer management: water and soil microbiology, ecohydrology, limnology, land improvements
• Chemical and physico-chemical analyses of water
• Functional relationships in terrestrial ecosystems

Modelling and its tools

• System dynamics
• Hydrological modelling and soil transfer modelling
• Modelling exchanges in biosystems
• Elements of multivariate statistical analysis

The techniques of the engineer

• Applied mechanics, soil mechanics and geotechnics, material strength, structural stability, general construction processes, building physics and special techniques
• Renewable energies and energy systems
• Hydraulic machines and networks, irrigation, hydraulic installations and their impacts, fluid mechanics, gravity flows
• Environmental metrology, acquisition and control systems

Environmental management techniques

• Basic principles of purification and waste management
• Environmental assessment, environmental impacts of projects and plans
• Soil quality assessment and management, remediation and improvement
• Geomatics applied to natural resource management

Economics and management

• Human resources and professional relations management
• Environmental economics and law
• Project design and evaluation.

Added value

Added value of the bioscience engineering masters

Versatile training

At the end of the first cycle of studies, students move on to one of the four master's fields. However, this choice does not lock them into a narrow specialization. The general profile of the Gembloux bioscience engineer guarantees a capacity to adapt to the rapid evolution of the professions, as evidenced by the varied careers of bioscience engineers trained at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech. The most important thing is to focus on the field that best suits your tastes, aptitudes and professional project.

In addition to the teachers at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, about fifty specialists from the world of work participate in teaching in bioscience engineering masters.

Psychosocial skills

The "skills portfolio" makes it possible to refine the construction of professional skills outside the technical fields of specialisation. These are essentially the psycho-social skills (or "Soft Skills") to be reinforced with a view to a future professional project.

The portfolio is an opportunity to enhance in its curriculum personalized training or personal projects that are part of the development of the future professional project. For example, it can provide entrepreneurship coaching for the creation of a company or the follow-up of training courses giving access to technical cooperation for development projects.

Each master's degree also includes a group project, supervised by specialists, which develops communication and organisational skills.

An active internship in a company

Being confronted with professional realities is fundamental to maturing and refining your professional project. A minimum eight-week internship is required in a master's degree. It allows you to discover a profession, a company and a sector of activity. It is also an opportunity to acquire the necessary steps to find a job.

To prepare students for this internship, they will be supervised by human resources specialists who will help them to approach the internship as effectively as possible and who will then analyse their experience with them in order to make the most of this contact with the professional world.

Master thesis

The last months of the second master's degree are entirely dedicated to the completion of a final year work. It is a personal scientific work on a theme defined in consultation with the promoter(s) leading to the demonstration by the students of their autonomy and their ability to pose and solve a problem whose level is compatible with the objectives of the training and the time allocated. This personal work may include the development of analytical methods, measurement tools or planning techniques.

The Faculty also offers the possibility of carrying out this end-of-study work in companies. Compared to the traditional end-of-study work, this formula involves a period of immersion in a company of at least eight weeks. It aims to increase the development of skills such as organizational, time management and task sharing skills. It also aims to raise awareness of the constraints of the professional context (time, deadlines, reliability, safety, costs...). The students jointly define with the Faculty and the company the theme of the final year work.

Learning outcomes

Profile

In the specialisation subjects of each of the four masters programmes, these programmes give a very high place to know-how related to the skills that graduates must acquire (practical work, excursions, field visits, group projects) as well as to professional experience activities (internships, end-of-study work that can be carried out in companies).

Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech also supports the development of the students' professional project, making them aware of the socio-economic world and employment throughout the 2 years. This awareness is achieved in particular through courses common to the four bioscience engineering masters courses, which aim to acquire essential managerial and relational skills in the professional environment as well as to promote initiatives requested from students (personal projects, non-compulsory internships, linguistic immersion, etc.).

Learning outcomes

Transversely, the Bioscience engineers leaving Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech are university executives, endowed with entrepreneurial and managerial skills, who can :

Make diagnoses on the complex problems affecting the biosphere, production and valorisation of living organisms;

Adopt a systemic approach to problem solving through adequate mastery of life and environmental sciences, engineering sciences, human sciences and experience acquired through international outreach and professional experience;

Develop innovative professional practices for sustainable biosphere management that take into account scientific, technical, economic, environmental and societal constraints.

Act as a responsible engineer by completing your scientific profile with aspects of communication, leadership, collaborative work, project management, but also ethics and professional conduct in order to be able to respond effectively to new environmental challenges.

Graduates of the Master's degree in Bioscience engineering in Environmental Sciences and Technologies have, at the end of their training, the necessary skills to ensure the thoughtful management of natural resources, whether in temperate or tropical climates, in accordance with the principles of sustainable development.

They are particularly specialized in:

• Assuming responsibility for scientific research in the field of the environment in an evolving context;
• Designing technological solutions to define equipment, systems, infrastructure and services for new or existing environmental needs;
• Acting on the environment to ensure its sustainable management.