The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1583 by the Town Council and is the sixth oldest university in the UK, it says. Its student factsheet records 48,820 students matriculated in session 2025/26. Professor Sir Peter Mathieson has been Principal and Vice-Chancellor since February 2018.
The university’s Division of Global Agriculture and Food Systems is based at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies on the Easter Bush Campus, part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It works on two themes, food system transformation and healthy people, healthy planet, and in 2019 launched the One Health FIELD Network on food security in fragile and conflict-affected states. The school’s Roslin Institute lists sustainable agriculture among its research themes, with programmes on genes and traits for healthy animals and on the prevention and control of infectious diseases. The division says the Roslin Innovation Centre hosts partner bioscience companies, and lists industry consortia including the Centre of Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL), Agri-EPI and the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre.