Notices by the General Board

Future of the veterinary medicine course at Cambridge

3 March 2026

The General Board is providing this update to follow up its meeting last week on the future of veterinary education at Cambridge, and the decision to continue the veterinary medicine course.1 The Council, with input from the Board, will publish a response to the remarks made on 13 January about the Topic of concern separately, which will address some misunderstandings about the deliberations to date. However, the Board also wants to set out a factual account of the process that led to its decision, and next steps.

The challenges facing Cambridge’s veterinary medicine course relate to two structural features: the small size of the course, which is constrained by the number of places available in the Colleges, and the science-intensive curriculum, which is difficult to align with the evolving accreditation standards of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). These features have made it increasingly difficult to find a sustainable operating model for the course.

Since 2018, a failed business plan for running the teaching hospital that supports the course has added to the challenges. The General Board initiated a review in May 2023 to consider options for providing clinical teaching, including distribution to external providers. In November 2024, the course reached a crisis point, with the accumulation of years of financial losses and a highly critical accreditation report from the RCVS. The General Board agreed to stand down the wider review, to focus on restoring the course to full accreditation.

At that point, the School of the Biological Sciences stepped in to provide the necessary leadership, resources, and support the Department of Veterinary Medicine needed to address the accreditation issues facing the course. With oversight from the General Board, the School gained the assurances necessary to admit an intake of students in 2025, developed and implemented a work plan to restore full accreditation to the course, and kept the General Board informed as to the progress. The Department was a full partner in these efforts, with the School of the Biological Sciences devoting significant resources and key personnel. The work is still in progress; the course is now conditionally accredited by the RCVS for a second year, and a further visit is expected in October 2026.

Alongside these efforts, the General Board asked the School of the Biological Sciences to evaluate alternative models for the future of the course, some involving partnerships for delivery of its clinical elements, recognising that the course still does not have a sustainable way forward. Working with colleagues from the Department of Veterinary Medicine, the School deliberated at length on a number of possible models and concluded that none of them would solve the problems the course faces. It therefore recommended the closure of the course and the facilities that support it.

Although the General Board did not proceed with this recommendation, it affirms the careful and rigorous analysis carried out by the School of the Biological Sciences and will draw on it as it considers options for the course going forward. In the short run, the Department must continue to make the changes necessary to achieve full reaccreditation of the veterinary medicine course and to implement the operational changes that the Department proposed to the running of the veterinary hospital that are necessary to eliminate the budget overruns. These are matters of great urgency and will no longer be the responsibility of the School of the Biological Sciences. As the Department recognises, implementation will require new leadership, and the Faculty Board of Veterinary Medicine will manage and oversee these changes. The General Board will monitor progress on implementing these measures and their success.

The General Board fully recognises the strength of feeling which this issue has produced, especially in recent months, and the impacts on many in the Cambridge community. Following its decision, the General Board now encourages colleagues to work together in a positive and supportive way, and to help deliver the goals the Board has set out for the benefit of staff and students.

Formalising outcomes from the first-year assessment of students on doctoral programmes

The General Board has agreed to formalise registration for the M.Phil. Degree by thesis as a possible outcome of a first‑year assessment for a doctoral degree. The changes to the General Board Regulations below will allow the award of an M.Phil. Degree on more than one occasion in the specific circumstance of registration for a second M.Phil. Degree as an outcome of a first-year assessment for a doctoral degree.

(a) In the General Board Regulations for the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Science, Master of Letters and Master of Philosophy by thesis (Statutes and Ordinances, 2024, p. 488) by inserting the following new Regulations 3(b) and 3(c) and renumbering existing Regulation 3 as Regulation 3(a) and updating any cross-references:

(b)If the Degree Committee considers that it cannot recommend a candidate be registered or remain registered for a doctoral degree based on the outcome of a probationary or first-year progress examination or report, but it can recommend that the candidate be registered or examined for the award of the M.Phil. Degree by thesis, the Degree Committee shall make that recommendation to the General Board. The General Board shall either approve the Degree Committee’s recommendation or refer the matter back to the Degree Committee.

(c)No student shall be a candidate for the M.Phil. Degree by advanced study or by thesis on more than one occasion unless the requirements in Regulation 3(b) above are met.

(b) In the General Board Regulations for the degree of Master of Philosophy by Advanced Study (Statutes and Ordinances, 2024, p. 498) by inserting the following new Regulation 1(b) and renumbering existing Regulation 1 as Regulation 1(a) and updating any cross-references:

(b)No student shall be a candidate for the M.Phil. Degree by advanced study and for another University examination in the same term. No student shall be a candidate for the M.Phil. Degree by advanced study or by thesis on more than one occasion unless the requirements in Regulation 3(b) of the General Board Regulations for the degrees of Ph.D., M.Sc., M.Litt. and M.Phil. by thesis are met.