Veterinary Education: The 2019 Ranking of the World's Top 50 Veterinary Schools Has Been Released

The list of the top 50 veterinary schools worldwide has just been released for the fifth consecutive year. Fifty of the world’s leading universities in the field of veterinary science—from 18 countries across five continents—are compared and ranked in the QS World University Rankings. Africa has made its debut in the top 50 for the first time this year. In Europe, however, France is still missing from the list: national veterinary schools remain absent from the global rankings.

In total, 48 different disciplines are included in the QS World University Rankings, and 78 countries are represented this year. On the podium of the world’s best veterinary schools in 2019, the Royal Veterinary College in London (United Kingdom) takes the top spot ahead of UC Davis (California), which drops one spot. Utrecht University (Netherlands) moves up two spots to take third place. The Royal Veterinary College, now ranked number one, had been ranked third since 2015, the year the first veterinary ranking was published. [2025 Rankings: Click here] Further down the list, there are two new entrants in the top 10: The University of Sydney (Australia) climbs two spots to tie for ninth place with the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom), while Ohio State University (United States) gains eight spots and rises to eighth place. Once again this year, the United States leads the rankings of the best veterinary schools by a wide margin , with 18 universities among the top 50. Also in North America, Canada has three of its veterinary science universities ranked in the global top 50. The United Kingdom remains at the top among English-speaking countries outside North America. In addition to the four British universities ranked among the top 10, three others are in the top 50, for a total of seven. In Europe, following the United Kingdom and its seven institutions are the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Germany, each with two ranked veterinary schools. The seven other European countries represented (Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Finland, and Switzerland) each have one institution ranked among the top 50. Norway, which had one university ranked last year, has dropped out of the rankings, and France is still not represented… In Oceania, the University of Sydney (9th place) is the highest-ranked of the four Australian institutions. New Zealand, also represented by Massey University, has dropped to 29th place. Brazil, the only Latin American country represented in the top 50 since 2015, has dropped out of the rankings this year (the University of São Paulo was 47th last year). In contrast, South Africa makes its first appearance in 2019, with the University of Pretoria taking 43rd place in the rankings. Finally, only one Asian institution made the list: the University of Tokyo (Japan), which ranks 43rd in the top 50, down one spot from 2018. To measure the reputation and performance of a school or university, the QS Top Universities World Rankings are based on three components: academic reputation (extensive surveys of academics and faculty), graduate employability , and research impact (publications in the Scopus database). For the past six years, another metric has been included: the h-index , which measures both the productivity and the impact of the work published by a scientist or academic. It can also be applied to a group of scientists (a department, a university, a country) or to a scientific journal. In veterinary sciences, more than 100,000 articles were indexed for the 2019 ranking, and citations and the h-index accounted for 60% of each institution’s score.

2019 Global Ranking of Universities in Veterinary Sciences

1. Royal Veterinary College, University of London, United Kingdom (▲ 3rd from 2015 to 2018)

2. University of California, Davis, United States (▼ 1st from 2015 to 2018)

3. Utrecht University, Netherlands (▲ 5th in 2015 and 2018, 7th in 2016, 9th in 2017)

4. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (═ 8th in 2015, 4th from 2016 to 2018)

5. Cornell University, United States (▼ 2nd from 2015 to 2018)

6. University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (▼ 9th in 2015, 11th in 2016, 8th in 2017 and 2018)

7. University of Guelph, Canada (═ 4th in 2015, 8th in 2016, 6th in 2017, 7th in 2018)

8. Ohio State University, United States (▲ 25th in 2015, 22nd in 2016, 18th in 2017, 16th in 2018)

9. University of Sydney, Australia (═ 11th in 2015, 2017, and 2018; 9th in 2016)

10. University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (▼ 9th in 2015 and 2018, 6th in 2016, 5th in 2017)

11. Michigan State University, United States (═ 21st in 2015, 15th in 2016, 12th in 2017, 11th in 2018)

12. University of Glasgow, United Kingdom (▲ 7th in 2015, 16th in 2016, 17th in 2017, 14th in 2018)

13. University of Ghent, Belgium (▲ 27th in 2015, 20th in 2016 and 2017, 17th in 2018)

14. University of Minnesota, United States (▲ 13th in 2015, 28th in 2016, 14th in 2017, 22nd in 2018)

15. University of Copenhagen, Denmark (▲ 17th in 2015, 10th in 2016, 13th in 2017, 19th in 2018)

16. Wageningen University, Netherlands (▼ 16th in 2015, 19th in 2016, 15th in 2017, 13th in 2018)

17. University of Melbourne, Australia (▼ 28th in 2015, 18th in 2016, 15th in 2017 and 2018)

18. University of Pennsylvania, United States (▼ 19th in 2015, 4th in 2016, 7th in 2017, 6th in 2018)

19. University of Bristol, United Kingdom (▲ 11th in 2015 and 2016, 25th in 2017, 20th in 2018)

20. Texas A&M University, United States (▼ 6th in 2015, 14th in 2016, 10th in 2017 and 2018)

21. Universities of Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (▲ 6th in 2015, 25th in 2016, unranked in 2017, 28th in 2018)

22. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden (▼ 43rd in 2015, 30th in 2016, 28th in 2017, 21st in 2018)

23. Colorado State University, United States (▼ 13th in 2015 and 2016, 19th in 2017, 18th in 2018)

24. Iowa State University, United States (▲ 35th in 2015, 41st in 2016, 39th in 2017, 40th in 2018)

25. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany (═ 25th in 2015, 23rd in 2016, 25th in 2017 and 2018)

26. North Carolina State University, United States (▲ 20th in 2015, 17th in 2016, 21st in 2017, 27th in 2018)

27. University College Dublin, Ireland (▼ 40th in 2015, 31st in 2016, 29th in 2017, 24th in 2018)

28. University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States (▲ 24th in 2015, 27th in 2016, 22nd in 2017, 30th in 2018)

29. Massey University, New Zealand (▼ 15th in 2015, 25th in 2016, 23rd in 2017 and 2018)

30. Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain (▲ 23rd in 2015, 21st in 2016, 33rd in 2017, 31st in 2018)

31. University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria (▲ 33rd in 2015 and 2018, 36th in 2016, 37th in 2017)

32. Purdue University, United States (▼ 30th in 2015, 32nd in 2016 and 2018, 24th in 2017)

33. University of Queensland, Australia (▲ 22nd in 2015, 29th in 2016, 32nd in 2017, 38th in 2018)

34. Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (▼ 50th in 2015, 43rd in 2016, 39th in 2017, 33rd in 2018)

35. Free University of Berlin, Germany (▼ 44th in 2016, 34th in 2017, 26th in 2018)

36. University of Nottingham, United Kingdom (▼ 45th in 2015, 35th in 2016, 29th in 2017 and 2018)

37. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States (▼ 43rd in 2015, 33rd in 2016, 27th in 2017, 36th in 2018)

38. Washington State University, United States (▲ 37th in 2015, 39th in 2016, 34th in 2017, 41st in 2018)

39. University of Florida, United States (▼ 17th in 2015, 24th in 2016, 31st in 2017, 35th in 2018)

40. Tufts University, United States (▲ 34th in 2015, 41st in 2017, 44th in 2018)

41. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, United States (▲ 45th in 2018)

42. University of Georgia, United States (▼ 31st in 2015, 40th in 2016, 43rd in 2017, 37th in 2018)

43. University of Adelaide (new entry), Australia

44. University of Tokyo, Japan (▼ 34th in 2017, 42nd in 2018)

45. University of Pretoria (new entry), South Africa

46. University of Montreal, Canada (▲ 42nd in 2015, 44th in 2016, 48th in 2017, 49th in 2018)

47. University of Calgary, Canada (▲ 49th in 2017, 48th in 2018)

48. University of Milan, Italy (▲ 47th in 2016, unranked in 2017, 49th in 2018)

49. University of Helsinki (new entry), Finland

50. University of Liège, Belgium (▼ 49th in 2016, 45th in 2017 and 2018)

Universities that dropped out of the 2019 rankings:

University of São Paulo, Brazil (▼ 36th in 2015, 38th in 2016 and 2017, 47th in 2018)

Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Norway (▼ 39th in 2015, 42nd in 2016, 44th in 2017, 43rd in 2018)

Murdoch University, Australia (▼ 38th in 2015 and 2018, 37th in 2016, 41st in 2017)