Your arrival at UCLouvain
UCLouvain prides itself on welcoming and supporting international students, academics and researchers. Whether through a personalised welcome in the faculty or institute, a programme of academic year opening activities, or easy access to language courses, every effort is made to facilitate the integration of newcomers into the university community. UCLouvain publishes an International Welcome Guide and offers a virtual Welcome Desk for international academics and researchers.
Your Joint Academic Career Plan (PAIC)
The Joint Academic Career Plan (PAIC) is intended to ensure that academics’ individual plans are consistent with the expectations of the structures to which they are assigned (faculties, institutes and sectors) and, more broadly, with the university authorities. It is for this reason that the PAIC is described as “joint”, since it requires dialogue and agreement between the academic drawing up the PAIC and his or her main partners. The PAIC approach is based on a reciprocal commitment between academics and their institution.
The PAIC covers the three missions entrusted to academics: research, education and serving society. It defines the main goals academics set themselves over a given period.
By its very nature, it is flexible and adaptable. An academic career cannot be conceived as a rigid and entirely predictable path. Academics have to adapt to a changing world, seize opportunities as they arise, and adjust to constantly evolving institutional needs.
The PAIC is a career-monitoring tool whose aim is to guide, rather than to exercise control over, the development of the academic career. It also aims to adjust objectives to workload.
For new academic staff, the PAIC defines the objectives to be achieved during the probationary period. These objectives are used by new academic arrivals and their “coach” (the senior academic responsible for advising the new arrival) as a monitoring tool.