9 Jan 2026
Open letter said vet school closure “would represent a profound gamble with public health and scientific excellence”.
Chris Simpson
Job Title
Image: tanibond / Adobe Stock
A coalition of veterinary organisations has called on the University of Cambridge to reject the recommendation to close its vet school, which it branded “premature, flawed and short-sighted”.
The open letter published this afternoon (Friday 9 January) follows a meeting held today between BVA president Rob Williams and representatives from the university’s School of the Biological Sciences, in which he urged them to reverse the recommendation to cease veterinary education.
A decision regarding the proposed closure expected to be made at a general board meeting in the coming days is thought to have been postponed with no new date fixed, in order to give the vet school more time to prepare its case against it.
The letter, signed by 20 veterinary organisations including the BVA, BSAVA, BEVA, VMG and SPVS, described the veterinary school as “a strategic national and international asset whose closure would represent a profound gamble with public health and scientific excellence”.
It argued the school is “indispensable” to the one health paradigm due to its impact on pandemic preparedness, scientific research and veterinary workforce resilience and that its closure “would cause significant damage to Cambridge’s reputation in science and medicine”.
The coalition urged university authorities to commit to finding a sustainable funding model, concluding: “The argument for closure is based on financial concerns regarding clinical training and a perceived failure to find a viable clinical services model.
“However, the signatories consider that the decision of the Council of the School of Biological Sciences was premature, flawed and short-sighted, ignoring the immeasurable public good provided by the school and the various viable options to address clinical teaching.
“The core argument for strengthening and keeping the vet school open is that its value cannot be measured in the financial deficit of a clinical hospital.
“The university, being the largest biomedical cluster in Europe, possesses the financial and intellectual resources to resolve the clinical service model’s challenges.
“The professional bodies, staff, and students are united in their assessment: the closure recommendation is hasty, unjustified and flawed.”
Dr Williams described the vet school’s potential closure as “extremely worrying”.
He added: “The loss of Cambridge would undoubtedly affect current and future veterinary students, but the shockwaves will be felt far more widely, with serious implications for food safety, animal and human health and welfare; scientific research and progress; and additional pressure on the veterinary workforce providing medical care to pets, livestock and other animals.”
The proposed closure has prompted significant backlash from the institution’s Department of Veterinary Medicine – which said the announcement had “come as a bolt from the blue” and accused the university of a “rush to judgement” – and from the wider community, including vet and MP Danny Chambers.
The British Veterinary Union recently echoed a similar sentiment as it lent its weight to the department’s “Save the Vet School” campaign, branding the recommendation as “hasty, lacking in transparency and unreasonable” and calling on the university “to halt the current process and properly engage with the vet school about its future”.
Almost 15,000 people have lent their support to the Save the Vet School site, which also features hundreds of comments from university staff, students, alumni, industry colleagues, Queen’s Veterinary School Hospital clients and members of the general public.
