Description
Healthcare simulation—techniques that recreate clinical events or environments for training, assessment, quality improvement, and research—has evolved from basic technical training into a well-established, complex, evidence-based approach that enhances patient safety and healthcare quality, as well as individual and team skill development.
However, simulation research in Europe remains fragmented across national, disciplinary, and professional boundaries, limiting collaboration, knowledge sharing, and equitable implementation. Five major challenges constrain its potential: keeping pace with rapid technological change; preparing healthcare professionals for increasingly complex and multicultural systems; translating simulation into measurable improvements in quality and safety; overcoming disciplinary and geographic fragmentation; and ensuring sustainable career pathways for emerging researchers.
The Simulation Education And Research Collaborative in Healthcare (SEARCH) will address these challenges by establishing a pan-European community of practice and research that connects academics, clinicians, industry, policymakers, scientific societies, and patient representatives. SEARCH will coordinate and strengthen healthcare simulation research, build capacity, and promote inclusiveness across Europe.
Building on the diffuse expertise of the European simulation community, SEARCH will align research efforts, strengthen capacity, and promote mutual learning, knowledge mobilisation, and translation. It will map existing resources, projects, and opportunities; identify barriers to knowledge transfer; develop an open-access toolkit alongside a ten-year European research agenda; foster interdisciplinary consortia; and help establish sustainable career pathways.
By aligning research, innovation, and policy, SEARCH will advance simulation science and establish a sustainable, inclusive European ecosystem for healthcare simulation research that will enhance healthcare outcomes across Europe well beyond the lifetime of the Action.
Action keywords
Healthcare simulation - Interdisciplinary Research - Experiential learning - Healthcare Quality and Safety - Community of Practice
Management Committee
| Country | MC Member |
|---|---|
| No records found | |
Main Contacts
Action Contacts
COST Staff
Working Groups
| Number | Title | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Network Building | TBA |
| 2 | Interdisciplinary Knowledge Mobilisation | TBA |
| 3 | Knowledge Translation and Pathways to Impact | TBA |
| 4 | Capacity Building and Skills Development | TBA |
Express your interest to join any of the working groups by applying below.
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