Organisational background

The first new School of Veterinary Medicine in Scotland for 150 years. It’s time to do things differently.

The UK’s veterinary schools produce professionals of the very highest order, but changes in our workforce and work patterns mean the profession remains on the Home Office’s ‘Shortage Occupation List’. The UK veterinary profession is failing to achieve self-sufficiency and is experiencing a loss of expertise associated with rapid staff turnover (notable skills gaps persist within it). Our new vet school, with up to 60 new students per year, aims to help address this.

It is essential that we build new, home-grown talent pools for ourselves and equip them with the mixed-practice and specialist skills that our rural communities, food and government sectors require.

Our vision for the SRUC School of Veterinary Medicine is to provide a sustainable, resilient foundation for clinical excellence to support the animals and communities at the heart of Scotland’s Natural Economy.

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Organisation aims & mission

• To create the first tertiary school of veterinary medicine in Scotland by developing a disruptive educational model, widening access and participation through a range of education entry points.
• To focus on rural veterinary mixed (general, primary care) practice to support communities, food production, countryside leisure and animal welfare to boost the natural economy.
• To lead in the interdisciplinary training of veterinary teams.
• To deliver early and clinical training in authentic animal enterprise and primary care settings (distributed model), easing the transition to, and resilience within the workplace.
• To create a much-needed focus to support veterinary professionals across Scotland, complementing and extending the repertoire of the established Schools to meet Scotland’s priorities better.

Vision without action however is merely a dream. We firmly believe it is time to try something new, and we are looking for enthusiastic colleagues to join us in a range of academic roles to help bring this vision to life.

We are an ambitious institution with a bold vision for the future. This is a groundbreaking model to expand access to educational opportunities and broaden the range of potential students who would not ordinarily be able to attend a vet school. It will also help solve existing skills shortages across Scotland.

We see a key role of the new vet school in sustaining primary agriculture and hence food and drink productivity, with the welfare of both livestock and companion animals at its heart. The school will produce champions for best-in-class animal welfare in support of these industries, which will help improve productivity, effectiveness, and sustainability.

SRUC employs approximately 1,300 staff operating from the five campuses, eight farms, 25 consulting offices, six research centres and eight veterinary surveillance centres located primarily across Scotland. The organisation’s annual turnover is around £85 million.

SRUC’s principal purpose is to advance education, science, research, and environmental protection and improvement in rural and land-based industries, both domestically and internationally. The commercial consultancy, skills training and knowledge exchange and some commercial research activities are undertaken through SAC Consulting – part of SRUC.

It is SRUC’s intention to become a fully-fledged university – a new and unique establishment for the 21st century that is regional, accessible, market-focused and responsive to a diverse range of challenges in the emerging natural economy. We will be a strong and unique anchor institution where research, skills and business converge. Such convergence will create new insights that deliver big strategic leaps and completely new propositions for business, society and government.