Women make up more than half of new RCVS fellows for first time

The RCVS has welcomed 38 new fellows into its ranks, ahead of this autumn’s Fellowship Week, for their significant contributions to the veterinary industry.

The RCVS has informed its newest fellows, who will be joining the society later this year.

Contributions

Of those who were successful, 20 joined the fellowship for meritorious contributions to clinical practice, 8 for meritorious contributions to knowledge and 10 for meritorious contributions to the profession.

More than half of the successful applicants were women.

Very proud

Fellowship Board chairman John Innes said: “It was a great pleasure to personally write to all of my wonderful colleagues whose applications for the fellowship have been successful.

“They should be very proud that they have successfully made it through our rigorous, but fair application process, and how they’ve contributed to our profession in various different fields of endeavour.

“At the outset of my time as chairman I said I wanted to broaden the make-up of the fellowship, particularly in regards to gender as I was acutely aware that the fact we are now a majority-female profession, and that has not been quite reflected by the fellowship.”

More diverse

Prof Innes added: “I am delighted that, for the first time, this year we saw that a majority of the successful applicants were women and I hope that this trend towards a more diverse range of applicants will continue as we go forward.

“I look forward to welcoming and celebrating the achievement of all our successful applicants in the upcoming Fellowship Week, which promises to be an exciting occasion with talks and presentations on interesting topics and veterinary research from people at all stages of their veterinary careers.”

The RCVS Fellowship Week is taking place between 30 September and 7 October, and will include a variety of free-to-attend online activities across the week.