UK-Ireland resources

Annoucing the newly formed BBSRC funded Animal Welfare Research Network (AWRN). The AWRN aims to foster enhanced collaboration and cohesion within the animal welfare research community, including researchers in related disciplines, with a view to increasing successful grant-funded research and promoting the impact of research outputs.

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As part of the project we are in the process of developing a website which we hope will showcase UK animal welfare research, and be a useful forum for instigating discussion of research activities and collaboration.

We held our inaugural meeting of network members on 9-10 May 2016 at The Wellcome Trust, London.

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schedule

2023 Regional Meeting

In 2023, we hosted our first in-person meeting post-COVID and the first conference that Keelin O’Driscoll (ISAE Ireland Rep) and Ellen Williams (ISAE UK Rep) had hosted. It was really great to bring everyone together and there was lots of positive feedback from the delegates. It was hosted at Harper Adams University and in total 40 delegates attended. We had a ram packed schedule with a mixture of full length and speed talks. The day was started with a keynote talk from Professor Francoise Wemelsfelder from SRUC. Francoise delivered a really inspirational talk on animal sentience and highlighted the need for positive animal welfare to be included in welfare assessments. She then went on to talk about how she worked with retailer Waitrose to include animals’ emotional well-being in its supply chain standards of animal welfare. It was amazing to see the application of this research so successfully in industry. Talks from other delegates covered a range of disciplines, considering all aspects of applied animal behaviour, from animal learning theory, to conservation and in improvement of welfare. As with other regions, the ISAE regional conference prides itself on supporting students, and this year was no exception. Thanks to support from the ISAE council we were able to financially support some student attendees with small bursaries, and we had prizes for the best student talk. The calibre of student talks was so high that we had to award a joint winner position for the best conference talk. We were delighted to award Holly Vickery (Reading University) and Louise Evans (Nottingham Trent University) with the prize of entrance to the next ISAE international congress. Holly presented her work on feeding behaviour of dairy goat kids and Louise talked about learning in horses.

This year we teamed up with the Animal Welfare Research Network to host the ISAE UK & Ireland regional conference with them, this allowed us to help delegates maximise the benefit to travel and in doing so, reduce carbon footprint on a per conference basis. For similar reasons, we are hopeful to continue our relationship with the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) where possible in future too. We are very excited to be taking our next regional conference, in 2025, back to Ireland, where it will be the ten year anniversary of the first conference there. Again, we will be looking to collaborate with another organisation if possible, as that was really successful this year.

2020 Regional Meeting

The 2020 regional meeting was held on the 4^th of March 2020 at the De Vere East Midland Conference Centre on the campus of the University of Nottingham. The meeting was organized by:

Simon Turner (SRUC, ISAE regional secretary for the UK)
Amy Quinn (Teagasc, ISAE regional secretary for Ireland)
Lisa Yon (University of Nottingham)
Naomi Harvey (University of Nottingham)
Mark Farnworth (Nottingham Trent University)

2018 Regional Meeting

A very well attended regional meeting was held at the Langford Campus of the University of Bristol in Februrary with around 70 delegates and a wide range of extremely high quality presentations. We favoured a format of conventional 15 minute oral presentations and short 5 minute oral presentations rather than posters. Congratulations to the first and second placed stuent prize winners Melissa Smith and Kate Norman. The regional secretaries express their sincere thanks for the local organising committee (Stephanie Buijs, Joanne Edgar, Anna Trevarthen and Carole Fureix). The abstract book and video links to the 24 presentations are available in the members only part of the ISAE website. We are extremely grateful to Jon Day at Cerebrus Associates Limited for recording and making these videos available and hope that members have found them useful. In the next few months we will begin to organise the next regional meeting and would be interested to hear from institutes who are keen to host this.

proceedings

2015 Regional Meeting

The ISAE UK and Ireland Regional Meeting took place in Cork Ireland in December 2015. During the conference research on the topics of wild and zoo animal behaviour, and farm and companion animal behaviour was presented. Two plenary talks, one concerning an overview of ethological research investigating preferences of dairy cows for various management strategies, and the other on personality and evolutionary strategies in wild birds, were also presented. The audience included not only ethological researchers, but industry representation, agricultural advisory staff, and personnel from the Department of Agriculture.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Scottish Government: Environment, Biology and Agricultural Research

Natural Environment Research Council

Wellcome Trust

The Leverhulme Trust

British Veterinary Association Animal Welfare Foundation

Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

NC3Rs

Animal Welfare Science, Ethics And Law

There is an annual Course on Animal Welfare Science, Ethics And Law that is held at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, UK.

Through a combination of lectures, videos and discussions, this course is designed to cover the curriculum for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeon's"Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law: Introduction and Theory" Module. However, it is also suitable for those just interested in learning about/updating their knowledge of animal welfare. Past attendees have included veterinarians (working in practice or for government or animal charities), animal welfare researchers and students, and animal charity workers/campaigners, and have come from a wide variety of countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the USA.

The Course, made up of five Sections, is taught by academics and professionals from many universities and organizations: Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge; Department of Biomedical Science and Biomedical Ethics, University of Birmingham; Department of Law, University of Aberdeen; Department of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol; Department of Life Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lincoln; Chester Zoo; Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Undergraduate

A number of UK and Ireland universities and colleges provide education to BSc level in applied animal behaviour and welfare. For a list of Institutions, follow the link below:

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