Master of Safety Engineering (Leuven)

The Master of Safety Engineering will prepare you to improve and realise safety in many different areas. The programme trains you in prevention policy and safety management systems, the safety of products, processes, and installations, qualitative risk analysis techniques, and fire and explosion safety. You’ll obtain detailed knowledge of technical and managerial process safety concepts with regard to the whole life cycle of a production plant, and risk evaluations based on qualitative and quantitative methods.

The Master of Safety Engineering comprises a total of 60 credits. The programme consists of a group of common compulsory courses (23 credits) that are taken up by every student. This party contains courses with themes that are of interest to every safety professional, irrespective of the specialisation option. All courses in this part are taught in English. This relatively large core part ensures that every student is given the same broad basic education about the specialised field of safety.

After a general introduction to safety engineering, prevention policy and safety management systems are treated. Safety of products, processes and installations are discussed next and qualitative risk analysis techniques, fire and explosion safety complete this section.

Furthermore, students choose between one of two available options (22 credits each): Option Process Safety or Option Prevention. In turn, each option contains a number of compulsory courses (16 credits) and elective courses (6 credits).

The Option Prevention focuses on occupational safety and health-related issues. The compulsory courses in this option also discuss non-technical aspects concerning safety. This option is mainly of interest to candidates who want to obtain the Certificaat Preventieadviseur Niveau 1.

The Option Process Safety provides students with a detailed knowledge of technical and managerial process safety concepts with regard to the whole life cycle of a production plant from concept to design, construction and operation to decommissioning. Safety concepts of representative operational units are presented in a series of case studies. Examples of required safety oriented competences in industrial operations are also discussed. It is shown how risk evaluations and estimates based on qualitative and quantitative methods are performed.

Each student also needs to choose elective courses either from a short indicative list, or from any Master’s programme within the Group of Science, Engineering and Technology.

Finally, students have to complete a Master’s thesis of 15 credits, which represents an effort that is consistent with a programme of 60 credits in total.

The programme can be completed normally in one-year on a full-time basis. However, to facilitate the participation of working professionals, it can also be followed on a two year part-time basis.