Built to Evolve
A campus that grows with its people
Our Campus
From teaching campus to world-class academic health hub
Seventy years ago, the Tygerberg Campus opened its doors as a place of learning. Today, it is one of Africa's most sophisticated academic health science environments — a living campus that has continuously reinvented itself to meet the demands of each new generation of students, researchers, and clinicians.
With over 4,500 students and 2,100 staff members, it has never been just about numbers. It has been about building the right environments for learning, discovery, and healing.
Innovation Nodes
Three pillars of a modern campus
BMRI
Biomedical Research Institute
Africa's largest biomedical research complex — 500+ researchers across TB, neuroscience, HIV and more.
SCSU
Simulation & Clinical Skills Unit
World-class simulation that prepares students for clinical reality before they enter the ward.
MMLC
Medical Morphological Learning Centre
Collaborative learning spaces built for the way today's students actually study together.
Evolution
A campus that grows with its people
The Tygerberg Campus that stands today bears little resemblance to the institution that first opened its doors 70 years ago.
What began as a primarily teaching-focused environment has evolved into one of Africa's most comprehensive academic health science hubs, integrating education, research, clinical training, and community engagement.
This transformation reflects sustained investment in the facilities, tools, and technologies needed by each new generation of students and researchers.
Buildings Rise
Seven decades, layered in structure
The campus opens its doors as a place of learning.
Capacity grows alongside the student body.
Real-world training reaches across the Western Cape.
Learning by doing becomes embedded in the curriculum.
A research and collaboration ecosystem comes of age.
Learning Spaces
Transformed learning spaces
Modern lecture venues, purpose-built for interactive and blended learning, have replaced the passive lecture halls of earlier decades. Digital infrastructure now enables hybrid participation, online learning integration, and real-time engagement across platforms. The Medical Morphological Learning Centre (MMLC) and a newly developed library offer dedicated collaborative spaces where students can work together, think together, and learn from one another, reflecting a growing understanding that the best education happens in community, not isolation.
Simulation
Simulation at the core of clinical training
Simulation has become central to clinical training. The Simulation and Clinical Skills Unit (SCSU) and the SunSkill facility represent a step change in how students are prepared for the realities of clinical work. Before entering a ward or theatre, students can practise procedures, manage simulated emergencies, and build confidence in a safe, controlled environment. This approach of learning by doing, without risk to real patients, is now internationally recognised as best practice in health professions education.
Learning by doing — without risk to real patients.
Research
Research has found its permanent home
The Biomedical Research Institute (BMRI) stands as perhaps the most visible symbol of the campus's evolution. Africa's largest biomedical research complex, the BMRI brings together more than 500 researchers and students working across fields including tuberculosis, neuroscience, HIV, cardio-metabolic disease, rare genetic disorders, and reproductive health. Its facilities include the first automated Biorepository in the Southern Hemisphere, capable of storing millions of samples under continuous monitoring, as well as the largest BSL-3 laboratory in South Africa.
Connection
The campus connects inward and outward
Informally, it has invested in the human dimensions of student life — green spaces, social areas, accessible design, and environments that support wellbeing alongside academic achievement. Formally, it has extended its reach to clinical training platforms across the region, ensuring that students are exposed to real healthcare environments from the earliest stages of their training, in hospitals and community health settings that serve some of the country's most complex patient populations.
On Film
Step inside the campus
Built for learning. Built for discovery.
Built for healing.