The Dutch language is disappearing as a scientific language in Flanders, with 97% of doctoral theses at the region’s five universities now written in English.
Recent data from De Standaard and Fris, the Flanders Research Information Space, which aggregates information on academic publications, reveals the shift towards English. “Publishing in Dutch makes it impossible to build a career,” argues researcher Dries Bostyn from Ghent University.
In 2024, Ghent University recorded just 18 Dutch-language doctoral theses, compared to 760 in English. Similarly, at KU Leuven, only 28 of the 1,024 theses were written in Dutch. At smaller universities such as the University of Antwerp, around 93% of the doctoral theses were submitted in English.
The dominance of English extends to academic papers as well. Last year, 91% of all academic contributions from Flemish researchers were in English, up from 76% in 2008. During the same period, the number of publications in Dutch halved, dropping from approximately 2,200 to 1,000 annually.
An increasing number of students are also opting to write their master’s theses in English, according to survey findings.
