KU Leuven builds new skills centre for students and health professionals

At Gasthuisberg campus, the foundation stone has been laid for STEPS, KU Leuven’s new skills centre for students and health professionals. This building will house innovative learning environments and advanced simulation technologies for students in the Biomedical Sciences Group and for health professionals. With this project, the university takes an important step in expanding and strengthening its infrastructure for education and training in the context of health care. 

The past decade, the number of students in Biomedical Sciences (Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Movement & Rehabilitation Sciences) has substantially increased. To make sure all these students can easily respond to the rapidly changing health care context and needs, the university will support a number of initiatives for educational innovation and interprofessional student education. Additionally, continuing education is an absolute requirement to make sure we keep working on the bridge between the professional field and the academic world.

One of the important pillars of that approach is the skills education in the study programmes. That is why the university is building a multidisciplinary and high-performing skills centre, to create a realistic learning environment for students, which will optimally prepare them for the professional field. The project was named STEPS: Skills Training Education Proficiency Simulation. This project will be housed in the existing building ‘Onderwijs & Navorsing 2’, and in a new building, of which the foundation stone was laid today. The new building should be ready by the start of the 2026-2027 academic year.

Not only students from the Faculties of Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences will be trained in this centre, but also health professionals from University Hospitals Leuven (UZ Leuven) and from the Flemish Hospital Network KU Leuven will be able use this centre for training in the context of continuing education. 

The STEPS building is divided into different zones for diverse types of training, like communication trainings, rooms for the so-called stationsproeven (practical medicine exams), reanimation courses, self-study stations, complex simulators for technical skills, simulated complex care environments, and rooms with virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). Each zone is designed to support different learning goals, from basic instrumental skills to high-fidelity simulation training. With this centre, KU Leuven wants to respond to the need for continuous professional development for health care workers, a need that became even more visible during corona times.

Crossroads between education, research and health care

The location of the STEPS building on the Health Sciences Gasthuisberg Campus makes it a central hub for education, research and health care. This campus, where KU Leuven and UZ Leuven meet, provides an integrated environment where academic and professional programmes in health care can strengthen each other. The location of STEPS was no coincidence, the skills centre is a literal and symbolic bridge between the existing education and health care facilities, which allows for a seamless integration of theoretical and practical education.

Sustainability and flexibility are key concepts in the design of the new STEPS building, with a structure that should last for more than a hundred years, but, at the same time, can be adapted to changing technological and pedagogical evolutions. The fossil-free building will have a high-performance audiovisual system, broad hallways for transporting materials, and a room with a flexible lay-out that can be adapted easily to new needs and purposes.

This article was first published on 10 June by KU Leuven.