HRH The Princess Royal, University Chancellor, set to open buildings

Posted 5 December 2014

Arrangements are being made at Harper Adams University for a visit by its Chancellor, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, early next year.

On January 27, the Chancellor will officially open the Veterinary Services Centre and The Jean Jackson Entomology Building.

This will be the first visit by the Princess to the main campus since she was installed as the Chancellor in November 2013, although HRH did visit staff and students at the Harper Adams Pavilion on the Royal Welsh Showground in Wales at the Royal Welsh Winter Fair earlier this week.

Vice Chancellor Dr David Llewellyn said: “We are delighted to be able to welcome our Chancellor back to the University to formally open our new facilities.  The investments we have made in veterinary science and entomology, with the support of external sponsors, will be of immense benefit to our students and to our research programmes.  We look forward to seeing the Chancellor again in the New Year when we will have the opportunity to show Her Royal Highness some of our work in these important disciplines.”

The Veterinary Services Centre (VSC) has been developed to provide high quality facilities for the University’s growing numbers of veterinary physiotherapy students.

The University has offered taught postgraduate programmes in veterinary physiotherapy to qualified veterinary nurses, human physiotherapists and veterinary surgeons and students with other animal health or science related degrees since 2009. These programmes were developed in partnership with the National Association of Veterinary Physiotherapists (NAVP) and this partnership continues to underpin the provision.

In autumn 2013, the University’s first cohort of undergraduate students started a specialist BSc Veterinary Physiotherapy programme.

The VSC has been developed as an extension to the existing veterinary nursing building and comprises a range of treatment rooms, a canine hydrotherapy suite as well as external exercise/assessment facilities for canine and equine cases.

A very generous donation of £200,000 from the Jean Jackson Charitable Trust was put towards the refurbishment of an existing sustainable building at Harper Adams to create specialist entomology facilities – a key resource for the study of insects.

Harper Adams hosts the UK’s last remaining Masters’ degrees in entomology. The academic team and number of students have continued to grow since the transfer of the course and its teaching staff from Imperial College, London in 2012. With that growth came a need for improved facilities.

The newly-transformed Jean Jackson Entomology Building houses Controlled Temperature and Lighting rooms (CTL) and general laboratory facilities.  CTL rooms allow students and staff to replicate environments that support the growth of pests and predators throughout the year.

In addition to providing dedicated access in a practical setting to a range of specialist equipment for day-to-day use, the newly created space allows students and staff to take their studies and research forward to the next level.