Title : Growing Clinical Leaders in Nursing Education: Bridging Theory and Practice

Nursing Leadership at the Bedside: Building a European Clinical Leadership Library 

Clinical leadership (CL) is essential for ensuring safe, high-quality care in Europe's increasingly complex healthcare systems. However, within European nursing education, CL remains insufficiently defined, embedded, and is often associated with formal leadership roles rather than with bedside practice.

CL is defined as the ability of nurses to influence care through clinical expertise, ethical responsibility, and collaboration. Core competencies include professional nursing, innovation, advocacy, teamwork, communication, leadership, and ethics.

This Erasmus+ project (2024-2026) CL in Nursing Education aims to strengthen the conceptualization and integration of CL into nursing education across Europe. International cooperation between partners from Belgium, Finland, and Portugal promotes knowledge exchange and collaborative learning. The project encourages the longitudinal integration of CL throughout the entire nursing curriculum, from basic training to final internship. Methods include an integrative literature review, curriculum analysis, and the development of innovative educational materials.

The project has yielded three key results:

• a conceptual framework for clinical leadership (CL) developed through an integrative literature review and validated by means of workshops with all participating countries and by experts from each country 
• a tool for a GAP analysis to evaluate the alignment between curricula and competencies
• an open library for clinical leadership containing theoretical and pedagogical resources and innovative learning tools, including simulations, best practices, and an educational escape game, designed to strengthen bedside decision-making, teamwork, and communication.

This initiative supports the development of future nurses who contribute confidently to quality improvement and patient-centered care.

Birgit Van Biesbroeck is a Belgian nurse and educator with a master's degree in training and education sciences. She works as a nurse educator in higher education while remaining active as a home health nurse, enabling her to link academic insight with real-world care. She is currently engaged in research on clinical leadership in nursing education, aiming to strengthen professional development and enhance the quality of patient care.