Ready for the future

It is essential to prepare our university for the challenges of the coming decades. KU Leuven must be resilient against all possible crises, be they pandemics, digital threats, climate change or geopolitical conflicts and wars. These include the armed conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and eastern Congo. Furthermore, the evolution of the US economy and democracy and its relationship with academia is unpredictable. Major humanitarian crises are playing out around the world and a record number of more than 300 million people are expected to need aid. In particular, countries and areas such as Gaza, Myanmar, eastern Congo, Ethiopia, Syria and South Sudan are currently experiencing serious and unacceptable humanitarian crises. Nor can we ignore climate change.

To ensure resilience, we need to focus our education and research efforts on the major societal challenges ahead.

1. ​​As a university, we must ensure that even in a changing world order with many international tensions, unseen changes at the global level (climate) and rapid technological developments, we remain true to our core values and our function in society. We must continue to work to bridge ideological and political divides. In a world with increased competition between continents, we need to help think how to prevent or address tensions around trade, technology and territory. We find that in some countries universities are more dictated by national politics and academic freedom is under strong pressure. Years of collaborations between universities are suddenly broken, with great impact on research and students. Mobility of people is being curbed and talent exchange is taking a serious hit as a result. As a university, we have to find a good balance between openness and safety, between competition and cooperation, between innovating with impact in our country versus participating in global networks. We have to adapt and cannot ignore national security concerns, but must dare to propose pragmatic solutions.
2. As a university, we have a moral duty to do all we can to alleviate suffering in international crises. We can do this by hosting students from these areas and providing accommodation at our university, by helping rebuild infrastructure in affected areas, or by hosting patients from disaster areas. Inspired by the example of the University of Bologna, we can offer research scholarships for students from disaster areas. The KU Leuven Emergency Fund supports students fleeing from Ukraine. We will also expand initiatives such as Daughters for Life, in which female Palestinian students from Gaza start their education at our university free of charge. We should further strengthen cooperation with the Scholars at Risk programme (SAR).
3. We are committed to flexibility and adequate crisis response. KU Leuven has proven to be flexible in times of crisis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 80% of academic staff and students switched to fully online teaching in a matter of weeks. In total, more than 50 digital education programmes were developed, demonstrating how quickly and effectively the university was able to adapt. In the future, we will continue to develop flexible teaching models, including hybrid teaching methods, so that we can respond quickly to future crises. Our hospitals have also proven to be resilient in crisis situations such as the 2016 terror attacks and the pandemic. We need to make healthcare delivery even more resilient to crises so that UZ Leuven can continue to ensure continuity of care and patient safety in crisis situations.
4. We need a new kind of leadership, where every policy maker in our organisation must be able to react coolly, act flexibly, deal with uncertainties and be able to delegate, inspire and encourage teams. After all, today we live in a world where developments change overnight and upset the balance. To lead and manage an organisation in these circumstances, it is necessary to move away from entrenched structures, and a good dose of empathy and (emotional) intelligence is needed to spur people on, motivate them, make them move and work together.
5. We are putting even more effort into research on sustainable innovations and digital security. KU Leuven has invested €50 million in this over the past five years. This is just the beginning. We will promote the development of green technologies, renewable energy sources and circular economy solutions, collaborating with more than 30 organisations worldwide. In addition, the university will offer 100 courses and programmes specifically focused on sustainability, digital transformation and security, preparing students for the challenges of tomorrow.
6. We continue to build a resilient digital infrastructure with a strong focus on cybersecurity. In recent years, several millions were invested in strengthening the digital infrastructure. In addition, we work with experts and more than 30 international partners to integrate the latest technologies in the field of digital security into our education and research. We also support entrepreneurship in these fields by setting up spin-offs that market these cutting-edge digital technologies. The developments at our university in GenAI and digital twins are great examples of this. Moreover, the expertise on ethical, legal and social aspects should be integrated and valorised in these research domains. This multidisciplinary expertise is present and represents a great opportunity to become a world player in these fields. The continuity of the IT infrastructure and cybersecurity deserve due attention because they will be essential for KU Leuven and the university hospitals in geopolitical crisis situations.
7. Even more, we will focus on education geared towards the society of the future. We are installing a comprehensive model of lifelong learning that starts at the beginning of studies. We already have more than 3,000 students participating annually in programmes focused on sustainability and digital security. KU Leuven continues to actively invest in interdisciplinary research projects and educational programmes that address both technical and societal aspects of sustainability and security so that our students can not only adequately respond to crises but also acquire the knowledge and skills to proactively help prevent them. In addition, the great importance of being able to deal with moral dilemmas should be pointed out, which is covered, for example, in the postgraduate programme Applied Ethics. Finally, building sustainable quality education means ensuring quality training for education professionals. Our society is experiencing an acute shortage of teachers, with major consequences for the formation of future generations of students, including at our university. It is therefore important that the School of Education (SoE), as an interfaculty centre, continues to offer educational master’s programmes in various fields of science.
8. Sustainability can still be much more embedded in the functioning of our organisation by, among other things, expanding the network of sustainability forwards and eco-teams, which help promote sustainability in every decision-making body at KU Leuven. We could be more progressive in terms of sustainability, following the example of our northern neighbours such as Utrecht University and TU Delft. We definitely want to work on operationalising a roadmap KU Leuven climate neutral but also on a much broader interpretation of sustainability than just climate. We will therefore, among other things, ban the supply of soft drink vending machines and unhealthy snacks on our campus, install more water fountains, offer healthy alternatives to red meat, focus on local food products (short chain), work with reusable materials as much as possible, safeguard the green areas on our campuses as much as possible and in these ways ensure that sustainability is structurally embedded at KU Leuven.
9. As KU Leuven, we need to set an example and be a pioneer when it comes to social change and dealing with crises. We certainly did so in the COVID-19 pandemic and we are currently doing so in terms of sustainability. We must continue these efforts and highlight them even more, for the sake of our conviction and mission, but also to remain attractive to future students and staff.