April 2025
Yoshihiro Sakoda
Dean, the Cooperative Veterinary Education Program (Vet North Japan)
International-level Veterinary Education at Vet North Japan
I have been appointed as the Dean of the Vet North Japan in April 2025. Thank you for visiting our website.
High-quality veterinary education with international applicability is essential for meeting the ever-expanding and diversifying global needs of veterinary medicine and veterinarians. Therefore, the School of Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido University and the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine established the Cooperative Veterinary Education Program (Vet North Japan, VNJ) in 2012 to promote advanced veterinary education using Hokkaido as a research field and make the most of the schools' mutual characteristics and individual advantages.
Hokkaido University has strengths in education and research in companion animal medicine, infectious diseases, and life sciences, while the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine has strengths in education and research in production animal medicine and food safety. By integrating these, we have built an international-level education system, which was difficult for a single university to achieve, and we have also worked on improving the quality of veterinary education to ensure the international level, which is accreditable by the European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education (EAEVE). This means that our veterinary education program is internationally acceptable because the accreditation by EAEVE is officially viewed as third-party accreditation by an international authority.
We will continue to work on sustainable improvements in veterinary education in cooperation with the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, considering the opinions of both faculty and students and the global direction of veterinary education. In addition, we will return the experience and knowledge gained through EAEVE accreditation and its maintenance to internationalize veterinary education in Japan.
