Accreditation of our Veterinary Program

Accreditation is a sign of our programme’s quality. It enables our graduates to practise and continue their professional development in a competitive market anywhere in Europe.

Accreditation also provides us with the possibility of offering specialist European programmes approved by the European Board of Veterinary Specialisation (EBVS). The specialist programmes are divided into a one-year internship and three-year residency. You can read more on Specialist Education – EBVS - European Board of Veterinary Specialists.

Hypothetically, SLU could provide a veterinary program without being EAEVE accredited, as long as we are authorized by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. However, this is not an option. We need to be EAEVE accredited to be able to offer European specialist programs approved by the European Board of Veterinary Specialisation (EBVS).

We will remain accredited until September 2024. We are expected to receive the decision from the European Committee of Veterinary Education (ECOVE) on the next accreditation period in June 2024.

The veterinary programme accreditation process follows clear process with compulsory components stipulated in the standard operating procedure (SOP) which is summarised below.

Request for full visitation – in December 2022, SLU applied to be evaluated for continued accreditation. An evaluation agreement will be signed during March and sent to EAEVE.

Self-evaluation report (SER) – we must undergo a self-evaluation of our organisation following a clear template. The results will be compiled in a report and work with the first draft is ongoing. This will then be sent out several times for comment internally. At the start of January 2024, the final report will be sent to the evaluation group who will then conduct an on-site inspection.

Full visitation – the EAEVE-appointed evaluation group will visit SLU between 18 and 22 March 2024 to evaluate the educational activities on site. These dates were chosen as it is a time when teaching will be in full swing, i.e. the majority of students and staff are on campus. The evaluation should not affect the students in any way. The evaluation group will meet with representatives from the Veterinary Medicine Association (student union) to include the students’ perspective can be included in their report.

Visitation report – the delegation will create a report after their visit, which will include recommendations. We will then have 14 days from the final evaluation to read the report and correct any factual errors.

ECOVE decision – the European Committee of Veterinary Education (ECOVE) will convene in June 2024. They will take the decision to accredit the programme based on SLU’s own evaluation and the recommendations in the evaluation group’s report. Should they determine we have one or more significant shortcomings, we will receive the ‘pending accreditation’ status. If we are assessed as having followed the standard, we will be given the ‘accredited’ status. The decision will be announced within two days of ECOVE convening.

Re-visitation – if the programme is given the ‘pending accreditation’ status, a follow-up visit must be organised within two years to establish whether SLU has rectified the identified shortcomings. Specialist courses may continue during this period. If SLU chooses not to rectify the shortcomings, or if we do not follow the regulations for re-visitation, we will automatically be allocated the ‘non-accredited’ status.

If the European Committee of Veterinary Education (ECOVE) determine we have one or more significant shortcomings, we will receive the ‘pending accreditation’ status. We must rectify these shortcomings within two years and have undergone a re-visitation. You can read more under the section: How does the accreditation process work?

University management, VH Faculty management, the University Animal Hospital and the workgroup all agree that our veterinary medicine programme must be accredited. The aim is for the evaluation to result in immediate accreditation. If any shortcomings are noted, they will be rectified within the set time.

The basic requirement is that newly graduated veterinary surgeons from the programme are to have ‘day one competences’ meaning they are safe and competent to practise on the first day after completing their studies. There are further formal requirements that must be met to obtain accreditation.

Organisation

The University Animal Hospital (UDS) and VH Faculty must be one unit, both in terms of the organisation and finances and it must have a common strategy for the Veterinary Medicine programme.[IV1]  The integration of UDS and the VH Faculty starting on 1 January 2024 will meet this requirement.

Roles

The programme director of studies must be a veterinary surgeon; at SLU this is Senior Lecturer Helene Hamlin. UDS must also have a chief veterinary officer; at SLU this is Professor Jens Häggström, Deputy Director of the University Animal Hospital.

Out of hours emergency service

Students must have experience of working with emergency cases, both in the evenings and during the night. Their tasks must include stabilising animals, pain relief, palliative care and euthanasia. The University Animal Hospital must therefore be in operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during the semester. The University Animal Hospital must have an on-call service for admitting sick small animals and horses around the clock.

Number of patients

There are requirements on how many patients students must work with during their studies. Together with those responsible for each organisation, the workgroup will conduct an inventory to determine whether we already meet the targets for each species, or if action needs to be taken. There are established targets for both pre-clinical (pathology) and clinical settings for both working and companion animals as well as animals raised for food.

The following areas will be evaluated as part of the accreditation process:

• targets, organisation and quality assurance policy
• finances
• curriculum
• premises and equipment
• animals and teaching materials of animal origin
• teaching and learning resources
• student admissions, progressions and wellbeing
• systems and guidelines for student assessments
• academic and support staff
• research programmes
• continuing professional development, and
• third-cycle courses and study programmes.

We learnt a great deal from the previous accreditation process, which resulted in SLU being without accreditation for a period. This time, we will be placing a lot of focus on the internal preparatory process, where we will work with our self-evaluation report in a completely different way.

After having read the self-evaluation reports from other accredited institutions, we have ascertained that our report needs to be more ‘rigid’ and exclude details that have not been requested. We also need to focus on clarifying our quality assurance process.

University management will receive regular information about the process. The work group will continually consult with faculty management on how to rectify any shortcomings that come to light.

A workgroup is leading the accreditation process at SLU. Professor Ivar Vågsholm has been appointed the liaison officer for visitation. He must ensure that we follow the implementation of EAEVE’s standard operating procedure (SOP). He is also responsible for a number of practicalities related to the evaluation.

Professor Henrik Rönnberg is in charge of writing and approval of our self-evaluation report.

The workgroup also includes representatives from VMF and SLUSS. Linda Ferngren will provide the group with administrative support. 

The workgroup is responsible for the process and evaluation – not for ensuring that the organisation will meet the EAEVE standards. There will be dialogues with the responsible managers to work with any problem areas in order to guarantee SLU’s accreditation.

The following people have an advisory role and must be kept informed throughout the process:

• Pär Forslund, Deputy Vice-Chancellor
• Rauni Niskanen, Dean of VH Faculty
• Johanna Penell, Vice Dean responsible for courses and programmes
• Helene Hamlin, Programme Director of Studies for the Veterinary Medicine Programme 
• Karin Vargmar, Deputy Programme Director of Studies for the Veterinary Medicine Programme