Veterinary Education: The 2020 Ranking of the World's Top 50 Veterinary Schools Has Been Released 

The list of the top 50 veterinary schools worldwide has just been published for the sixth 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. In Europe, France is still missing from the list: national veterinary schools remain absent from the global rankings.

[2025 Rankings: Click here] 

A total of 48 different disciplines are included in the QS World University Rankings, and 83 countries are represented this year. In veterinary science, a total of 127,744,454 citations contributed to the 2020 rankings, an 8% increase from last year. These citations came from 22,558,134 articles, an increase of 1% compared to 2019.

In the 2020 rankings of the world’s best veterinary schools, UC Davis (California) takes the top spot ahead of the Royal Veterinary College in London (United Kingdom), which drops one spot. Cornell University (United States) moves up two spots to take third place. UC Davis thus regains its number-one spot, having dominated the rankings from 2015 (when the first veterinary ranking was published) through 2018.

Further down the list, there is a new entrant in the top 10: the University of Bern and Zurich (Switzerland) jumped thirteen spots at once to tie for eighth place with the University of Michigan (United States), while the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) moved up five spots to tenth place.

Once again this year, the United States leads the rankings of the best veterinary schools by a wide margin, with 17 universities among the top 50. Also in North America, Canada has three of its veterinary science universities ranked among the world’s top 50. The United Kingdom remains the top-ranked English-speaking country outside North America: in addition to the three British universities ranked among the top 10, five others are in the top 50, for a total of eight.

In Europe, in addition to the United Kingdom and its 8 institutions, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany each have 2 veterinary schools ranked among the top 50. The eight other European countries represented (Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Finland, and Switzerland) each have one institution ranked among the top 50. France, however, is still not among them…

In Oceania, the University of Sydney (12th place, down three spots) is the highest-ranked of the four Australian institutions. New Zealand, also represented by Massey University, moved up one spot to 28th place.

Brazil, the only Latin American country represented in the top 50, returns to the rankings this year with the University of São Paulo, which ranks 48th. South Africa, which made its debut last year with the University of Pretoria, has slipped to the bottom of the rankings, tied for 50th place with Tufts University in the United States. Finally, two institutions from Asia made the list: the University of Tokyo (Japan), which remains in 43rd place in the top 50, and Seoul National University (South Korea), which returns to 41st place after a two-year absence.

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 scholar. It can also be applied to a group of scientists (a department, a university, a country) or to a scientific journal. In veterinary sciences, citations and the h-index accounted for 60% of each institution’s 2020 score.

2020 World Rankings of Universities and Veterinary Schools

1. University of California, Davis, United States (▲ 2nd in 2019, 1st from 2015 to 2018)

2. Royal Veterinary College, University of London, United Kingdom (▼ 1st in 2019, 3rd from 2015 to 2018)

3. Cornell University, United States (▲ 5th in 2019, 2nd from 2015 to 2018)

4. Utrecht University, Netherlands (▼ 3rd in 2019, 5th in 2015 and 2018, 7th in 2016, 9th in 2017)

5. University of Guelph, Canada (▲ 7th in 2018 and 2019, 4th in 2015, 8th in 2016, 6th in 2017)

6. University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (═ 6th in 2019, 9th in 2015, 11th in 2016, 8th in 2017 and 2018)

7. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (▼ 4th from 2016 to 2019, 8th in 2015)

8. Michigan State University, United States (▲ 11th in 2018 and 2019, 21st in 2015, 15th in 2016, 12th in 2017)

9. University of Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (▲ 21st in 2019, 6th in 2015, 25th in 2016, not ranked in 2017, 28th in 2018)

10. University of Copenhagen, Denmark (▲ 15th in 2019, 17th in 2015, 10th in 2016, 13th in 2017, 19th in 2018)

11. University of Ghent, Belgium (▲ 13th in 2019, 27th in 2015, 20th in 2016 and 2017, 17th in 2018)

12. University of Sydney, Australia (▼ 9th in 2016 and 2019, 11th in 2015, 2017, and 2018)

13. Ohio State University, United States (▼ 8th in 2019, 25th in 2015, 22nd in 2016, 18th in 2017, 16th in 2018)

14. University of Minnesota, United States (▼ 13th in 2015 and 2019, 28th in 2016, 14th in 2017, 22nd in 2018)

15. University of Bristol, United Kingdom (▲ 19th in 2019, 11th in 2015 and 2016, 25th in 2017, 20th in 2018)

16. University of Melbourne, Australia (▲ 17th in 2019, 28th in 2015, 18th in 2016, 15th in 2017 and 2018)

17. University of Glasgow, United Kingdom (▼ 12th in 2019, 7th in 2015, 16th in 2016, 17th in 2017, 14th in 2018)

18. University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (▼ 9th in 2015, 2018, and 2019, 6th in 2016, 5th in 2017)

19. Wageningen University, Netherlands (▼ 15th in 2017 and 2019, 16th in 2015, 19th in 2016, 13th in 2018)

20. University of Pennsylvania, United States (▼ 18th in 2019, 19th in 2015, 4th in 2016, 7th in 2017, 6th in 2018)

21. Colorado State University, United States (▲ 23rd in 2019, 13th in 2015 and 2016, 19th in 2017, 18th in 2018)

22. North Carolina State University, United States (▲ 26th in 2019, 20th in 2015, 17th in 2016, 21st in 2017, 27th in 2018)

23. University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States (▲ 26th in 2019, 24th in 2015, 27th in 2016, 22nd in 2017, 30th in 2018)

24. Iowa State University, United States (═ 24th in 2019, 35th in 2015, 41st in 2016, 39th in 2017, 40th in 2018)

25. University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria (▲ 31st in 2019, 33rd in 2015 and 2018, 36th in 2016, 37th in 2017)

26. Texas A&M University, United States (▼ 20th in 2019, 6th in 2015, 14th in 2016, 10th in 2017 and 2018)

27. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden (▼ 22nd in 2019, 43rd in 2015, 30th in 2016, 28th in 2017, 21st in 2018)

28. Massey University, New Zealand (▲ 29th in 2019, 15th in 2015, 25th in 2016, 23rd in 2017 and 2018)

29. University of Queensland, Australia (▲ 33rd in 2019, 22nd in 2015, 29th in 2016, 32nd in 2017, 38th in 2018)

30. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany (▼ 25th in 2015 and 2019, 23rd in 2016, 25th in 2017 and 2018)

31. Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain (▼ 30th in 2019, 23rd in 2015, 21st in 2016, 33rd in 2017, 31st in 2018)

32. University College Dublin, Ireland (▼ 26th in 2019, 40th in 2015, 31st in 2016, 29th in 2017, 24th in 2018)

33. Free University of Berlin, Germany (▲ 35th in 2019, 44th in 2016, 34th in 2017, 26th in 2018)

34. Purdue University, United States (▼ 32nd in 2016, 2018, and 2019; 30th in 2015; 24th in 2017)

35. Complutense University of Madrid, Spain (═ 34th in 2019, 50th in 2015, 43rd in 2016, 39th in 2017, 33rd in 2018)

36. University of Nottingham, United Kingdom (═ 36th in 2019, 45th in 2015, 35th in 2016, 29th in 2017 and 2018)

37. University of Georgia, United States (▲ 42nd in 2019, 31st in 2015, 40th in 2016, 43rd in 2017, 37th in 2018)

38. Washington State University, United States (═ 38th in 2019, 37th in 2015, 39th in 2016, 34th in 2017, 41st in 2018)

39. University of Florida, United States (═ 39th in 2019, 17th in 2015, 24th in 2016, 31st in 2017, 35th in 2018)

40. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom (▲ new entry)

41. Seoul National University, South Korea (▲ unranked in 2018 and 2019, 41st in 2015, 50th in 2017)

42. University of Calgary, Canada (▲ 47th in 2019, 49th in 2017, 48th in 2018)

43. University of Tokyo, Japan (═ 43rd in 2019, 34th in 2017, 42nd in 2018)

44. University of Montreal, Canada (▲ 46th in 2019, 42nd in 2015, 44th in 2016, 48th in 2017, 49th in 2018)

45. University of Milan, Italy (▲ 48th in 2019, 47th in 2016, not ranked in 2017, 49th in 2018)

46. University of Helsinki, Finland (▲ 49th in 2019)

47. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, United States (▼ 41st in 2019, 45th in 2018)

48. University of São Paulo, Brazil (▲ unranked in 2019, 36th in 2015, 38th in 2016 and 2017, 47th in 2018)

49. University of Adelaide, Australia (▼ 43rd in 2019)

50. Tufts University, United States (▼ 40th in 2019, 34th in 2015, 41st in 2017, 44th in 2018)

51. University of Pretoria, South Africa (▼ 43rd in 2019)

Institutions dropped from the 2020 rankings:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States (▼ 37th in 2019, 43rd in 2015, 33rd in 2016, 27th in 2017, 36th in 2018)

University of Liège, Belgium (▼ 50th in 2019, 49th in 2016, 45th in 2017 and 2018)