BIOS originated from a movement of Dutch-speaking biology students in Leuven, who advocated for more Dutch-language courses. In the early 1950s, education at KU Leuven was still largely in French. In consultation with professors H. Koch, G. Vandenbroek, and K. Buffel, the student association was founded on December 5, 1951. The name was meant to refer to the “bios” mixture that had been developed at the botanical institute at that time. In the early years, the activities of BIOS were mainly focused on lectures and small-scale excursions. Gradually, the management came more into the hands of students and the atmosphere changed. The academic character made way for a friendly student mentality.

In the early 1970s, the association began publishing its own magazine: the ‘BIOSblad’. In this magazine, alongside important information for biology students, there is mainly a lot of useful nonsense to read. Recurring themes in the BIOSblad include reports of activities, games, jokes, drawings, and short writings by students. Nowadays, memes are also fully included in the magazines.

On Tuesday evenings, you can often find biologists in the current pub of BIOS: the Blokhut. This pub can be found on the Oude Markt near the landlady.