School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine

Head of School Welcome

Dear Colleagues,

It has been a great privilege to have served as the Head of School for two years. In that relatively short time, we have concluded the merger of two separate communities to form the School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine (SBOHVM) and made considerable progress in restructuring the School.

We are now moving into a phase of strategic delivery. Our School is large and diverse in every respect, whether in regard to the number of students and staff, or our infrastructure that extends from Loch Lomond to Lanark. With that size comes great opportunity and breadth of expertise to improve animal health, produce societal benefit, and acquire a greater understanding of the natural world.

I have been overwhelmed by the dedication and team spirit here in the School and I look forward to realising our ambitions over the coming years. It is important that we celebrate the enormous success we have achieved thus far and so it is with great pride that I share with you this report to highlight our achievements and
communicate our future strategic direction.

Professor Christopher Loughrey

BVMS PhD FRCVS FRSB FHEA

“I have been overwhelmed by the dedication and team spirit here in the School and I look forward to realising our ambitions over the coming years.”

A Revised Leadership Structure

Planning, strategy and optimisation of resources form the core ethos of our leadership structure. Some decisions require an agile and reactive response, balanced with future planning. To that end, we have formed a successful Head of School group that meets weekly to address topical issues relating to HR and finance. In parallel, we also have a School Executive group, which meets monthly to address strategic decisions.

The group includes the key leaders of the School who have line management of over 550 staff and Directors who take strategic responsibility for our future direction and leadership of their functional areas. The future is often unpredictable, but the philosophy of these two leadership groups is that we take control of what we can control and take charge of where we can to move forward strategically.