The Free University of Brussels (French: Université libre de Bruxelles, or ULB; Dutch: Vrije Hogeschool te Brussel, later Vrije Universiteit Brussel) was a university in Brussels, Belgium. Founded in 1834 on the principle of "free inquiry" (libre examen), its founders envisaged the institution as a free-thinker reaction to the traditional dominance of Catholicism in Belgian education. The institutions was avowedly secular and particularly associated with Liberal political movements during the era of pillarisation. The Free University was one of Belgium's major universities, together with the Catholic University of Leuven and the state universities of Liège and Ghent.