The ceremony was opened by Dr. Elsy Verhofstadt, followed by a speech of our Dean, Prof. Dr. Roland Paemeleire. He emphasized the growth of the number of PhDs at our Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. This is of particular importance to advanced master degrees like the Master of Marketing Analysis, because it is mainly in these programs that state-of-the-art research finds its first way to industry by means of the graduates who are the first to hear about the scientific breakthroughs developed at our department as well as elsewhere.

Afterwards, the most exciting part (at least for the students) was the part where the chairman of the exam committee, Prof. Dr. Eddy Omey, announced the grades of the new graduates.

Then, it was time to give the floor to the Ghent University Choir (see separate blog entry to avoid long download times of this page) followed by a student representative, MMA graduate Matthias Meul, followed by mr. Freek Van Baelen, chairman of our Alumni association VOSEKO. (picture below shows the Ghent University Choir, followed by one of mr. Freek Van Baelen & mr. Matthias Meul from left to right). You can find the video of the entire speech of Matthias Meul as a separate blog entry.

Then, it was time for the prizes to be awarded. In the case of the Master of Marketing Analysis, Professor Emeritus Jacques de Rijcke, to hand over the prize to Kim Van Geel.

We thank Anneke Van den Sompel for making available the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th picture of this page.