As with other practice-based professions, research is vitally important to the field of veterinary nursing. Professions have a responsibility to provide high-quality services that are beneficial to their clients, whether human or animal, based on systematic and ongoing research, providing evidence-based principles. Even though veterinary nurses work as members of a healthcare team, there are areas of their professional practice that are exclusively their domain, which warrant scientific investigation. Veterinary nursing research will not only assist veterinary patients and clients through improving nursing practices, but will also advance the development of veterinary nursing as a profession. Generating a unique body of knowledge is one of the criteria by which a profession is defined. This article examines what is research in veterinary nursing, why research is important to veterinary nursing professional practice and how scientific research can promote the development of the veterinary nursing profession.