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University LINKs Scheme

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden)

2018:

3rd Animal Welfare Science Symposium, Uppsala, Sweden 2^nd – 3^rd of May 2018 

This was the third annual Animal Welfare Science Symposium, organised by the Centre of Excellence in Animal Welfare Science, and supported by the UFAW LINK scheme. Like previous years, the symposium gathered more than 50 participants, mainly from the Swedish University of Agricultural Science and Linköping University, but also from other universities and the Swedish Board of Agriculture including the Swedish 3Rs Centre.

The Animal Welfare Symposium came about following five years of internal symposia organised within a large collaborative animal welfare research project between the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linköping University. Although animal welfare research is often presented at other specialised or species specific meetings, there is no regular multidisciplinary scientific meeting in Sweden that has animal welfare science as its focus. To advance the broad subject of animal welfare, researchers need to share and discuss their results and ideas, and the concept for this symposium is a friendly scientific forum to do just that. For this reason PhD and early stage researchers are particularly encouraged to present their work. The symposium is directed towards researchers involved in the animal and veterinary sciences, human-animal interactions, ethics, policy including law, economics and marketing, among other areas. Both natural and social scientists are welcome.

The programme offered longer plenary talks from invited speakers, shorter presentations from other participants, as well as group discussions. Presentations were given in three sessions titled according to the three focus areas of the Centre and a final free session. The three focus areas were; Animal welfare policy, Negative animal welfare and Positive animal welfare. Each of these sessions started with a presentation from one of the invited speakers. Prof. David Main from the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester, UK, initiated the policy session with his talk “New collaborative era in animal welfare leadership”. The negative welfare session was opened by Dr.Tom Smulders from the Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, UK, on the subject “Adult hippocampal neurogenesis: a biomarker of cumulative welfare?”. Saving the positive aspect for last, Dr. Jan Langbein from the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology in Germany, spoke on the topic “Goats that stare at men. Investigation of learning and cognitive capacity in farm animals. Implications for animal husbandry and animal welfare”. There were 20 talks in total covering farm, companion, laboratory animals and fish using approaches from disciplines as diverse as epidemiology to agricultural history.

Discussions were saved until the end of each session, when all speakers gathered up front to answer questions from the audience. To maximise the quality of the questions as well as providing networking opportunities, groups of participants were assigned one talk to discuss and agree on a joint question. The discussion groups were formed using a system so that each participant would encounter new individuals each time, with a balanced mixture of junior and senior researchers. These groups also wrote down questions to the plenary speakers, which were saved for a common panel discussion at the end of the symposium.

Just like in the previous year, the plenary speakers were given the task to nominate the winner of the award for best presentation by a junior researcher. This year, the award went to student Sara Ryding from Linköping University, for her presentation “Early life experiences influence impulsivity”.

Third time around, it is clear that the symposium is already shaping into a yearly tradition as a friendly event for fresh scientific results and ideas to be discussed in a cross-disciplinary setting.

2017:

The second Animal Welfare Science Symposium, organised by the Centre of Excellence in Animal Welfare Science of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), was held in Uppsala in August and attended by 50+ delegates from SLU, Linköping University and other Swedish research institutes. The aims of this annual event have much in common with that of the UFAW ‘Recent advances...’ conferences in that it seeks to provide a friendly scientific forum at which animal welfare researchers can share and discuss their results and ideas and advance animal welfare. It is targeted at researchers involved in the animal and veterinary sciences, human-animal interactions, ethics, policy including law, economics and marketing, among other areas - and PhD and early stage researchers are particularly encouraged to present their work. Prior to these symposia, there was no regular multidisciplinary scientific meeting in Sweden that had animal welfare science as its focus.

The two day meeting had three main areas of focus - ‘Animal welfare policy’, ‘Negative animal welfare’ and ‘Positive animal welfare’- and featured plenary talks from three invited speakers shorter presentations from other participants, as well as group discussions. UFAW was pleased to support the attendance of the invited speakers through the LINK scheme.

Each session started with a presentation from an invited speakers. Professor Henry Buller from the University of Exeter, UK, initiated the policy session with his talk “Animal welfare: beyond regulation?” The negative welfare session was opened by Professor Mechiel Korte from Utrecht University, The Netherlands, on the subject “Why allostasis is a game changer for animal welfare”. Saving the positive aspect for last, Professor Ruth Newberry from the Norwegian University of Life Science spoke on the topic of “Planning environmental enrichment with a focus on positive welfare”. There were 20 talks in total covering farm, companion, laboratory animals and fish using approaches from disciplines as diverse as epidemiology to agricultural history.

A prize was also given to the best presentation by a junior researcher, which was won by Josefina Zidar from Linköping University, for her presentation “Judgment bias is linked to emotional states and traits”.

The symposium was judged a great success with a  format that once again provided a mix of activities which allows for exchange of results and ideas across disciplines on a scientific platform, while also giving maximal opportunities for networking. 

“Stand still, you stupid horse!” Ethics and welfare in the human-horse relation