Wallonia-Brussels, open to the world
Wallonia, along with Brussels and Flanders, is one of the three Regions that make up Belgium. Wallonia is a region that is naturally open to the world, where languages and cultures are in constant dialogue. Wallonia’s colleges and universities, which boast a high position in the world rankings, are distinguished by a very high proportion of foreign students.
Wallonia exerts independent control over the territorial powers entrusted to it by the central State, such as economic policy, tourism and applied scientific research.
The Wallonia-Brussels Federation enshrines the association of all French-speaking Belgians within the same corporate entity. It is responsible for all matters related to culture or people: this mainly covers education, fundamental research, cultural policy, audiovisual matters, youth and sport.
Beyond the European Union, Wallonia is also a strong advocate of scientific and technological cooperation. As part of the Francophonie movement, Wallonia-Brussels has made a significant contribution to the emergence of a French network of innovation actors: the FINNOV network, and in 2015, Liege hosted the second World French Language Forum on the theme of Creative Francophonie. 1,200 young people from nearly 100 countries gathered there around more than 160 projects.
Wallonia also encourages young people to take advantage of all forms of international experience, whether within the framework of student exchange programmes (such as Erasmus), internship programmes within international organisations, or prospecting missions in businesses, such as those engineered by AWEX via its Explort programme.
This global outlook is a real asset for Wallonia, both because of the capacity of its economic and cultural actors to carve out a place for themselves on the international stage, but also due to its multicultural character.
”Feel inspired” by our hospitable and dynamic region, that draws on its rich past to build its future.