PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts is a young dynamic and vibrant organisation; a centre of expertise for innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.
PXL offers professional bachelor programmes in Business, Education, Healthcare, IT, Media&Tourism, Music, Social Work and Technology, and bachelor and master programmes in Arts.
PXL has 5 campuses in Hasselt and Diepenbeek. It's located in the heart of Europe, close to Brussels.
Mission
Hogeschool PXL professionalises people and organisations, contributing to prosperity and well-being.
Vision
Through a strong interweaving of education, research, services and practice of the arts, PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts wants to allow its students (junior colleagues) and staff to continue to grow as excellent professionals (= X-factor) and, together with its partners, to continue to grow as an excellent professional organisation (= X-factor).
We translate the PXL vision into the X-factor that models the 'excellent professional' and the 'excellent-professional-organisation'. We always use 'excellent' in combination (-) with 'professional' because we do not strive for excellence an sich, but for being 'excellent-professional'.
The X-factor is a combination of (em)passion, of being entrepreneurial and innovative, of (multi)disciplinarity and of (international) cooperation (networking). The X-factor with its 4 overlapping axes, forms a single and indivisible whole of hard and soft skills and is more than the sum of its parts.
The X-factor has a double effect. It is both our 'viewing guide' and our 'compass'. The viewing guide for (self)reflection indicates where we are at the start, the compass shows us the way to the ultimate goal, the excellent professional/professional organisation. The X-factor is not only a guide and a compass for our junior colleagues, staff and network, but also for PXL University University of Applied Sciences and Arts, as a beacon in its pursuit of an excellent professional organisation (= X-factor).
OUR EXCELLENT PROFESSIONAL HAS PASSION AND EMPATHY
Passion drives from our hearts, gives energy and gusto. It sparks curiosity and invites us to explore, discover possibilities and seize opportunities. Passion underpins change and innovation. It is a characteristic of the excellent professional who inspires others with expertise, knows how to captivate and convince them, draws them into his story and leads them. To do so, the excellent professional engages in dialogue and has the empathy to listen and understand. In this empathetic encounter, we get to know and respect both ourselves and the other person. Empathy is leading to serve and serving to lead in order to work together for a more beautiful world.
OUR EXCELLENT PROFESSIONAL IS ENTREPRENEURIAL AND INNOVATIVE
The excellent professional does not wait for things to happen but takes the initiative and just makes them happen. Being enterprising starts with wonder, the impulse to explore new territories, recognise opportunities, take risks, tackle problems as challenges and process setbacks as enriching experiences. From a strong 'know-do' mentality, driven by empathy and with a (multi)disciplinary know-how, the excellent professional takes well-considered decisions and calculated risks, seeks, finds and substantiates with argumentation and research. On the other hand, being an excellent professional also stands for the combination of creativity and courage to challenge and, if necessary, to sail against the current. Not innovation for innovation's sake, but innovation with respect for the values of the past to create new (added) value.
OUR EXCELLENT PROFESSIONAL COLLABORATES (INTERNATIONALLY)
Pushing and breaking boundaries requires (multi)disciplinary cooperation in multiple forms. The excellent professional does this in co-creation with junior colleagues, colleagues, professors, researchers, with other study programmes, with companies and organisations, with educational institutions, governments, art and cultural institutes and starting from the region to far beyond national borders. Excellent professionals want to share and test their knowledge, ideas and skills against each other as much as possible. They seek and find innovative ideas and common goals, and by working together they create added value and more value. Networking discovers and unlocks a lot of potential and by linking knowledge and insights, it creates new knowledge and new insights. This dialogue is aimed at getting the best out of each other, meeting the challenges of our society together, finding solutions and creating opportunities for future generations.
OUR EXCELLENT PROFESSIONAL IS DISCIPLINARY AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Apart from a lot of essential soft skills, the excellent professional masters his metier and his discipline, his hard skills, with depth and can translate them to others in word and deed and in different contexts. High-quality knowledge and skills are indispensable to understand and change with the complex world. Mastering one's own discipline commands respect while providing self-confidence to deepen that discipline and build bridges to other disciplines. After all, innovations lie at the intersections where different disciplines intersect.
No one is identical, everyone is unique. No one has the same X-factor. However, the X-factor is not optional, especially in our higher education context where final competences inspired by X-factor must be achieved to be recognised with an internationally recognised degree.
We have learned in our experience as a world-facing higher education institution that there is an inseparable relationship between professional and personal development. Professional action must be rational but must also start from the heart, i.e. also involve personal action. Working towards becoming an excellent professional (X-factor) is therefore simultaneously working on our professional and personal development. Whoever is strong as a person is also strong as an excellent professional.
OUR NAME
Our name is PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts. It is a power term, a strong brand that evokes a young and dynamic atmosphere. It is also an abstract name that can have multiple meanings. Like a work of art, you can give your own meanings to PXL. But the outside world wants clarity, and we provide it with PXL = Professionals & Excellence. PXL University wants to deliver true professionals who meet the X-factor. The X of the X-factor is central to our name.
University of Applied Sciences and Arts
As University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Flanders, with respect for our mother tongue, we do not want to deny the Dutch language. But we also choose to frame our education and research in the spirit of the Bologna process, within an international context. In this context, we organise courses in English, profile ourselves as a University of Applied Sciences and Arts and choose English-language names for our departments.
We look forward to the arrival of international students every year. They give our students a taste of foreign countries, other cultures, other customs and other languages here at home. And vice versa, our students also get a taste of other cultures far beyond our borders.
We are also a higher education institution with 'roots' in the region and a view of the world. A world that is changing rapidly and forces us to respond flexibly, and to anticipate. The labour market cannot be left behind, neither can education. The demand for many and excellent professionals moving in a complex reality is bound to increase.
SMOOTHLY SERIOUS
The course we are charting from our strategic policy plan is one with a high level of ambition. We are aware that we are at the helm of shaping the society of the future and guiding it through the various transitions. We take our task seriously, very seriously, but without sacrificing smoothness and agility. If we want to respond to the opportunities that present themselves, we will have to be agile, the architecture of our organisation will have to be transparent and our decision-making lines short and efficient. We conduct open communication with the world and anchor our higher education institution in a network of companies, organisations and institutions, bearers of prosperity and well-being.
