Agricultural bioengineering, professional focus

Programme content

The agricultural sciences are made up of all the exact, natural, economic and social sciences, as well as the techniques used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. The Bioscience engineer in Agricultural Sciences is therefore a person who has received scientific and technical training in biology making him/her suitable for understanding, designing, carrying out technical and conducting agricultural projects, as well as for commercial functions and advice related to products and services in the field of agricultural sciences.

The training is organized into optional course modules allowing the student to personalize his or her training, to acquire basic knowledge in plant and animal production, ecology, statistics and computer science, economics, law, accounting and management.

The skills

At the end of their training, bioscience engineers in agricultural sciences have the necessary skills to analyse, in an integrated manner, the biological, ecological and socio-economic processes of agricultural ecosystems, to understand the diversity of their functioning and to optimise the factors of animal and plant production in extensive or intensive, traditional or speculative, food or non-food agriculture, whether it is located in temperate or tropical environments.

Thanks to their versatile and general training, their teamwork experience and their autonomy, bioscience engineers in agronomic sciences can adapt, organize, develop and control agricultural production in terms of its quantitative and qualitative aspects, in an effective and efficient way with regard to the mobilization and transformation of natural resources. They are competent in integrating into their proactive approach all the links in the production chain, namely climate, soil, plant, animal, human and territory, in close consultation with specialists in these different disciplines.

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 Agronomic Sciences have, at the end of their training, the necessary skills to

• analyse in an integrative way the biological, ecological and socio-economic processes of agricultural ecosystems, in order to understand the diversity of their functioning
• optimise crop and animal production factors of extensive or intensive, traditional or speculative food or non-food agriculture, whether located in temperate or tropical environments.