The Pearson Building – part of a major refurbishment and extension programme at Bristol University’s Department of Clinical Veterinary Science – will be opened by The Right Hon. the Earl of Selborne, today.

The Pearson Building – named after the late Professor Harold Pearson, one of the first vets to graduate from the University of Bristol in 1954 – now comprises the 150-seat Hodgkin Lecture Theatre, four 30-seat seminar rooms, two 30-seat computer suites, a 120-seat category 2 teaching laboratory and a suite of offices for student administration.  The building is equipped with state-of-the-art audio visual aids, microscopes and computers. The total investment in the building was £2.5 million.

The investment reflects the increase in veterinary undergraduate students to an annual cohort of about 120 and the instigation of three new undergraduate courses (Animal Behaviour & Welfare, Veterinary Nursing and Veterinary Pathogenesis).

A further £1.5 million has been invested in refurbishing 880 sq.m. of the first floor of the Churchill Building at Langford, creating two level 2 containment laboratories, each having a large general open lab (for veterinary infection and immunity, and for veterinary microbial pathogenesis) and associated specific support laboratories. 

Lord Selborne championed the need for greater research into veterinary diseases as the Chair of the Committee of Enquiry into Veterinary Research. Principally as a result of this committee’s work, the Government - through HEFCE and Defra - have funded some £25 million worth of veterinary training research initiatives over the next five years. The University of Bristol was awarded £3.6m for the project Animal susceptibility to infection and disease: do animal husbandry and welfare drive microbial colonisation and immune development?

Lord Selborne was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University in 1989.