The Faculty Veterinary Medicine of the University of Liège (), sometimes historically referred to as Cureghem, is a faculty of the

University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...

, established in

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

, Belgium. It was founded in 1832 as the Royal School of Veterinary Medicine of Cureghem in

Anderlecht Anderlecht (; ) is one of the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the south-western part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, Forest, B ...

, a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. Consistently ranked within the world's top 50 veterinary institutions, it is the oldest

veterinary school Veterinary education is the tertiary education of veterinarians. To become a veterinarian, one must first complete a degree in veterinary medicine Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM, V.M.D., BVS, BVSc, BVMS, BVM etc.). In the United States and C ...

in Belgium and the only

French-speaking French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in ...

institution to provide full veterinary education.

History

Brussels

In 1832, shortly after Belgium's independence, King Leopold I ordered the creation of a commission for the teaching and awarding of official diplomas in

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, medical diagnosis, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in non-human animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all a ...

. The School of Veterinary Medicine and Rural Economics () was founded in the centre of the

City of Brussels The City of Brussels is the largest List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, municipality and historical City centre, centre of the Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the French Community of Belgium, the ...

, where the commission was based, on the present site of the Bozar Royal Center for Fine Arts. It was transferred to Cureghem, in the municipality of

, in 1836 and changed its name to the Royal Veterinary School of Cureghem (). It would remain the only veterinary school in the country for over a century. Teaching is done in French. Because of its location close to the Senne river, the school has to cope with the many overflows. In 1892, the school moved to a specially built campus, still in Anderlecht, consisting of 19 Flemish neo-renaissance buildings. These new buildings are connected to each other by cellars equipped with decompression chimneys, preventing the premises from

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

ing. The buildings are also largely covered with

lightning rod A lightning rod or lightning conductor (British English) is a metal rod mounted on a structure and intended to protect the structure from a lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it is most likely to strike the rod and be conducted ...

s, because the modern version of these had been invented by Louis Melsens, professor at the Royal School of Cureghem. Since 1965 (Law of 9 April), the Veterinary School of Cureghem as well as its more recently established Dutch-speaking counterpart in

Ghent Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...

were considered as autonomous university faculties. Cureghem was then renamed the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (). In 1968, government decided to integrate the two existing veterinary schools into universities. Only two state universities existed at that time, the State Universities of

and

. The school administratively joined the

in 1969, the only French-speaking public university. All the universities in

(notably the Free University of Brussels, Saint-Louis University and the University of Louvain) are ''free'' subsidized (private) institutions. The faculty celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1986. File:Anderlecht2019 02.jpg, Historic main building of the Veterinary School, in

File:Anderlecht2019_01.jpg, Central building of the Cureghem School in Brussels, part of National heritage

Liège

As soon as the Cureghem school was integrated into the

in 1969, plans were made to transfer the entity to the city of

. The design of the new veterinary campus began in 1973, and its construction started on 23 September 1980. In 1991, the faculty of the University of Liège, still based in Brussels, finally moved to Liège to join six other faculties on the new Sart Tilman campus. This move was completed in 1993, which is also when the construction of the last building, the southern extension, was started. A new part of the Sart Tilman hill was cleared to accommodate the veterinary school. It was called the Cureghem district, south of the Sart Tilman hill, near the University Hospital and Liège Sports Centre. The project was led by the Centre de recherches en architecture et urbanisme (CRAU), a group of architects and engineers of the University of Liège. The site of the new Faculty of Veterinary Medicine is 35,000 m² large. In 2019, a new 5,600 m² house pet hospital is inaugurated by Minister of Higher Education Jean-Claude Marcourt.

Description

The Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Liège is one of only two veterinary schools in Belgium (together with the University of Ghent, historically the two state universities) authorised to offer a complete veterinary science curriculum including

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

, advanced masters,

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

s and research. The other accredited universities are only limited to the issuing of

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

s. It is also the only public veterinary faculty in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. The faculty has 1,600 students and offers 14 bachelors, masters, advanced masters, university certificates and teaching certificates, as well as doctoral programmes, in French and English. It also organises summer schools in veterinary sciences. It is a member of the European Association of Veterinary Education Establishments (EAEVE), the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

's body accrediting veterinary schools within the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. Furthermore, it is composed of 7 research departments, the FARAH (Fundamental and Applied Research for Animals & Health) faculty research unit and 3 interfaculty units in science and medical sciences. In addition, the University Veterinary Clinic of the University of Liège, the only one in French-speaking Belgium, is composed of three separate clinics; for equidae, ruminant-pigs and house pets. The latter, which alone takes care of 12,000 animals per year and 1,400 surgical interventions, moved to a new entirely dedicated building in 2019. The University Clinic has the particularity of taking care of all types of species, large and small, local and exotic animals. It also has the only

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and rad ...

suited for

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 mi ...

s in

Wallonia Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the c ...

, as well as another one specially dedicated to small animals, and three emergency services (for equidae, house pets and ruminant-pigs) that are permanently open, every day of the week and all night long.

Organisation

Departments

* Clinical Department of Pets and Equidae (DCA) * Clinical Department of Production Animals (DCP) * Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases (DMI) * Department of Morphology and Pathology (DMP) * Department of Veterinary Animal Resources Management (DRA) * Department of Food Science (DDA) * Department of Functional Sciences (FSD) * Tropical Veterinary Institute (TVI) ** Tropical Agricultural and Veterinary Centre of

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ), formerly named Léopoldville from 1881–1966 (), is the Capital city, capital and Cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kinshasa is one of the world's fastest-grow ...

(CAVTK), in the

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

Research units

* Fundamental and Applied Research for Animals & Health (FARAH) ** Sector of Veterinary Public Health Sector ** Sector of Sustainable Animal Production ** Sector of Comparative Veterinary Medicine * Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Biomedical Sciences (GIGA) * Teaching and Research Centre (TERRA) * Motion Analysis Research Unit (MARU)

University Veterinary Clinic

* Animal Pet Clinic * Equine Clinic * Ruminant-Pig Clinic

Studies

The faculty offers general training in

, health risk management, medicine and health risks in southern countries, equine dentistry,

food chain A food chain is a linear network of links in a food web, often starting with an autotroph (such as grass or algae), also called a producer, and typically ending at an apex predator (such as grizzly bears or killer whales), detritivore (such as ...

control,

food safety Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, food processing, preparation, and food storage, storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a simi ...

, equine orthopaedics, equine

revalidation In the United Kingdom and Australia, revalidation refers to a mechanism used to "affirm or establish the continuing competence" of health practitioners, whilst strengthening and facilitating ethical and professional "commitment to reducing errors, ...

and

beekeeping Beekeeping (or apiculture, from ) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as '' Melipona'' stingless bees are ...

. It also organises the necessary training to award the legal titles of Master of Experiment, laboratory animal caretakers and technicians, accredited by Felasa (the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations), which are compulsory for experimentation using laboratory animals.

Student enrollment

In order to limit the influx of foreign students, the number of non-Belgian resident students is capped each year at 20% according to the number of Belgian resident students enrolled the previous year.

Certifications and rankings

The quality of the teaching of the faculty has been assessed by the European Association of Veterinary Education Establishments (AEEEV), which has given it the status of "approved".

International academic rankings

Veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, medical diagnosis, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in non-human animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all a ...

is the field in which the

is best rated in international academic rankings. In 2017, the faculty was ranked as the world's 21st best veterinary school in the

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) is a public university in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 98 ...

Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...

(ARWU), based on research and publications in certain specialized scientific journals, and 38th in 2018. It is ranked 45th in the world by the

QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...

in 2017 and 2018.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* {{coord missing, Belgium Universities in Belgium

Educational institutions established in 1832 Buildings and structures in Liège 1832 establishments in Belgium Veterinary medicine in Belgium