The Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences (FVAS) was a faculty of the University of Melbourne until it was disestablished on 1 January 2023. The two schools merged into the Faculty of Science. The faculty was a medium sized faculty for undergraduate education and academic research into economically and medically important fields related to agriculture and veterinary science, such as agronomy, biosecurity, environment, food security, food science, parasitology, pest control, veterinary virology, zoonotic diseases, etc.^[1]

Organisation

The faculty was structured as follows while noting that all three leaders have left the University:

• Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences – Dean: Prof. John Fazakerley^[2]

• Melbourne Veterinary School – Head of school: Prof. Anna Louise Meredith OBE FRCVS^[3]

Research centres: Animal Welfare Science Centre, Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Centre for Animal Biotechnology, Centre for Equine Infectious Disease, Mackinnon Project, OIE Collaborating Centre for Diagnostic Test Validation Science in the Asia-Pacific Region, Poultry CRC^[4]

• School of Agriculture and Food – Head of school: Prof. Herbert Kronzucker^[5]

Research centres: Healthy Soils for Sustainable Food Production and Environmental Quality, Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre, Unlocking the Food Value Chain^[4]

History of organisation

The Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences was disestablished on 1 January 2023. The Melbourne School of Land and Environment was disestablished on 1 January 2015. Its agriculture and food systems department moved alongside veterinary science to form the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, while other areas of study, including horticulture, forestry, geography and resource management, moved to the Faculty of Science in two new departments. Previous constituent entities include the Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture (1995), Institute of Land and Food Resources (1997), Faculty of Land & Food Resources (2005) and School of Agriculture and Food Systems (in the Melbourne School of Land and Environment).^[6]

Facilities

Melbourne

Dookie

Locations of the two settlements within Victoria in which FVAS is represented

The faculty operated through the following facilities:^[7]

• Building 122 (a.k.a. Biosciences 2; Agriculture and Food), on Royal Parade, at the far-western edge of the Parkville campus, Melbourne – Faculty administration, study areas for students
• Building 400 (Veterinary Preclinical Sciences), on Flemington Road, part of the Western Precinct, an exclave of Parkville campus, together with the Bio21 Institute and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research – Research
• Building 438 (Werribee Demountable Consult), Werribee campus, Melbourne – A veterinary hospital and the Veterinary Science Library Werribee are located here. The latter generally collects in the areas of surgery, pathology and parasitology.^[8] Services offered at the library include borrowing, membership, renewals, inter-library loans, inter-campus loans, BONUS+ borrowing scheme, and printing and scanning.^[9]
• The Dookie campus

Student engagement

Courses

The faculty offered the following courses:^[10]

(*) The faculty required all students undertaking at least these courses to be vaccinated for the zoonotic bacterium Coxiella burnetii, the causal agent of Q fever.^[11]

Societies

Several student societies existed to foster cohesion among students in the faculty:

• Agricultural and Food Sciences Society^[12]
• Veterinary Students Society of Victoria^[13]
• Graduate student association

• Agrifoodies^[14]
• Animal Welfare Science Students of The UoM^[15]
• Postgraduates at Werribee (PAWS)^[16]
• Postgraduates of Veterinary Science (POVS)^[17]

Rankings

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has produced and annual rank, since 2017, of universities according to subject area in the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects. The table below summarises the rankings of the University of Melbourne in the subjects of 'Agriculture' and 'Veterinary Sciences', in comparison to all universities and Australian universities only. Since 2018, the University of Melbourne Department of Veterinary Biosciences has ranked second in Australia in Veterinary Sciences, behind the University of Sydney School of Veterinary Science.^[18]

ARWU Global Ranking of Academic Subjects

Subject	Geographic scope	2017 ranking	2018 ranking	2019 ranking	2020 ranking	2021 ranking
Agriculture	World	47	40	43	30	32
Agriculture	Australia	6	5	5	3	3
Veterinary Sciences	World	39	32	27	26	21
Veterinary Sciences	Australia	3	2	2	2	2