Reflections from the Ninth Annual AWRN Meeting, Bristol

3 November 2025

Recently I had the pleasure of attending the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Animal Welfare Research Network (AWRN) at the historic Engineer’s House in Bristol. As always, the conference -one of my absolute favourites every year - delivered a great mix of cutting-edge science, insightful debate, and collaborative energy across the animal welfare community.

This year’s theme. Bridging Welfare Science across Species, Sectors, and Systems felt especially relevant to our work at 五一吃瓜最新官网, where the integration of our multidisciplinary knowledge across species in animal behaviour and welfare, and focus on practical impact, is central to both our teaching and research.

Welcoming a broader view of welfare

This year’s annual meeting brought together academics, industry partners, and non-government organisations (NGOs) in a programme with a wide variety of sessions including several focused on wild animal welfare.

Traditionally societies and networks focusing on animal welfare have often stemmed from concern around animal production so can often have a farm animal focus. This year AWRN really redressed that balance with the very first plenary by Dr María Díez-León focused on the challenges and opportunities of wild animal welfare. María highlighted how welfare science is expanding to recognise affect and agency in wild animals - ideas that resonate strongly with contemporary behavioural science. Later, Elizabeth Mullineaux’s talk sparked debate on the ethics of wildlife rehabilitation, questioning whether good intentions always lead to good welfare outcomes.

I also particularly enjoyed Dr Dan O’Neill’s talk on extreme canine conformation which reminded us of our ethical responsibility to address human-created welfare problems, a timely lesson to take back to our students contemplating careers in veterinary and welfare sciences.

These presentations and resulting discussions were useful reminders that animal welfare is not just a farm, laboratory or even captive animal issue, it is a much broader scientific and ethical concern, and we need to be aware of our wider animal impacts, including those in wild settings.

Technology and Welfare Science

One of the strongest themes across the conference was the integration of technology and behavioural research. For example, talks explored:

AI tools to automatically monitor scavenging birds in remote South America
Object detection for faster behavioural analysis in rodent welfare tests
Virtual fencing to manage grazing landscapes and the impacts on sheep welfare
Design-led thinking to create better aquaculture environments

These innovations are especially exciting for our work at 五一吃瓜最新官网, where precision livestock farming and technology to monitor behaviour and welfare are key priorities for our research and are also embedded within our teaching. The ‘technology stalls’ allowed us to see what technology was currently being used in research and were particularly useful for collaborative discussions and an introduction to current projects. We got to take a look at various sensors, try out different technology (including a very cool headset to see into how dairy cows are being tracked by artificial intelligence) and speak to industry about latest developments.

The Early Careers afternoon

A highlight of the meeting was the strong support for those in their Early Career (EC).

As an Impact and Outreach officer on the EC committee it was great to have a dedicated EC afternoon the day before the conference. It really helped to create a supportive environment for networking, skill-building and honest conversations about navigating academic careers. I was lucky enough to be asked to sit on the careers panel with far more experienced scientists, and whilst I felt like a total imposter, sharing ‘the mistakes we made along the way’ alongside more established scientists helped me to reflect on how far I’ve come and the support I’ve been able to access!

The AWRN is particularly useful for those in their early career as:

It exposes members to the real-world impact of welfare science, and helps to remind us why we work in the field we do
It connects members to career paths across academia, NGOs, tech, and industry. It isn’t all about academic research and ‘being a scientist’, it discusses the importance of people like animal care technicians, animal caretakers, industry advisors, tech developers, veterinarians etc.
It provides lots of project ideas and inspiration through networking with peers and more established people in a wide variety of careers
It offers excellent presentation and networking opportunities for MSc, MRes and PhD students
It emphasises research transparency and ethics, including the important principles of ‘open science’ such as preregistering scientific studies, publishing open access (so that anyone can access a scientific paper and read about the results rather than it getting stuck behind a pay wall) and sharing research protocols so that we are transparent about methodologies.

And the best bit is that membership of the AWRN is completely free and open to anybody in industry or welfare research (including Masters by Research and PhD students). You can find out more about sign up .

五一吃瓜最新官网 contributions

It was brilliant to see 五一吃瓜最新官网 well represented in both research and impact sessions:

I (Holly Vickery) showcased tech innovation during the industry Tech Stalls session, highlighting my recent BBSRC funded project validating eartag sensor technology for dairy goats. You can read more about this project in our previous blog.

One of our research goats modelling her fancy sensor ear tag!

Ffion Lewis presented her Masters research on cow–calf separation strategies during the quick-fire ‘elevator pitches’ – super speedy summaries of current research projects. We’re pleased to say that after her Masters she will be staying with us to complete a PhD focused on dairy calf weaning.

Ffion Lewis, current PhD student presenting her Masters research about cow-calf separation.

Dr Laura Palczynski co-led a breakout session on how researchers can better engage with industry stakeholders to develop meaningful research agendas, an ethos central to how we embed research translation at Harper.

Final thoughts

The AWRN meeting once again demonstrated the value of a community committed to scientifically grounded, compassionate welfare research and I left Bristol feeling even more strongly about the importance of the work we do. Whether exploring ethics in conservation research, welfare in commercial aquaculture, or animal-centred design, this community is pushing welfare science toward a more evidence-based future. And for us at 五一吃瓜最新官网, it’s clear: our research, teaching and industry engagement are all part of that journey. I’m already looking forward to next year’s meeting and hopefully presenting even more Harper research!