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June 2026 - Focus: Connections and Outreach

1. Symposium: A number of the Animal Welfare Centre members attended the Vet School Seafood Symposium on the 13^th May.  Professor Susan Jarvis presented on ‘Welfare assessment in salmon; challenges and opportunities in aquaculture’.  There were great discussion groups during the symposium where fish welfare was one of the main points of discussion.
2. Visiting Professor:  We are delighted to be hosting Professor Sayoko Hamano from Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University, who will be here with us at the Animal Welfare Centre, for 6 months. Prof. Hamano is based in the Laboratory of Comparative Developmental Psychology, and is a veterinarian with a PhD in developmental psychology. During her time here, we will be collaborating on research and teaching focusing on human-animal relationships.
3. Visiting Researchers: The R(D)SVS Behaviour Clinic and Animal Welfare Centre co-hosted Dr Amin Azadian from UBC, Canada on a visiting researcher grant supported by Mitacs Canada. Erick Cabrera Vasquez from UC Davis is visiting Dr Sarah Brown, to develop behavioural neuroscience skills in collaboration with Dr Irene Camerlink at the Polish Academy of Life Sciences.
4. Multidisciplinary workshop: Together with James Yeates, the CEO of the World Federation for Animals,  we hosted a collaborative multidisciplinary workshop with R(D)SVS researchers to explore how animals and their well-being can be integrated with other sustainable development concepts. Dr Yeates also presented the annual R(D)SVS Charnock-Bradley lecture.
5. China: Hayley Walters, RVN delivered workshops to 14 Shanghai clinic owners and managers, on how to improve patient welfare in the clinic in collaboration with ‘Ada’s Vet Clinic, Shanghai’ – a high welfare veterinary clinic that is aiming to inspire others and teaches practical techniques to reduce fear and anxiety for patients in the clinic. Hayley also presented at BjSAVA (Beijing Small Animal Veterinary Association) on veterinary nursing, pain recognition, welfare in the clinic, and human behaviour change to improve animal welfare. The conference was well attended with vets from all over China, Thailand, The Philippines, and Hong Kong.
6. Student presentation: Tess Kimber, a former MSc IAWEL student presented her MSc dissertation findings at The 6th annual UK Animal Law Conference on 3-4 June 2026 at the University of Birmingham. Tess’s presentation was titled “Lesson from the XL Bully Ban: The Future of Breed Specific Legislation. Tess was supervised by Marie Rowland & Mark Farnworth.

May 2026

1. Teaching Matters blog post: The wicked problem of animal welfare? Developing the problem solvers of the future with MScs in Animal Welfare. Cynthia Naydani, Professor Susan Jarvis, Dr Jill MacKay, and Dr Sarah M Brown, from the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, draw a comparison between the discipline of Animal Welfare Science and the notion of ‘wicked problems’. They highlight two, innovative and long-standing MSc programmes as integral learning opportunities for the animal welfare community.
2. New funding: Dr Sarah Brown (PI), Dr Jill MacKay, and Fiona MacDowell have been successful in securing a pump priming grant for "A One Welfare approach to understanding workplace associated grief in veterinary nurses and its impact on animal welfare in clinics.
3. New publications: we have a list of new publications issued in the past month:

• Curry O, Everett A, Pearson G, Dwyer C, Duncan J. Preliminary investigation of equine veterinary hospital staff attitudes towards pain assessment in a single centre. Vet Rec. 2025;e1–e10. https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.6122
• Ricci-Bonot, C., Costa, E. D., Houpt, K., Jones, M., Koch, V. W., Pearson, G., Randle, H., van Dierendonck, M., & Mills, D. S. (2026). Development of a consensus definition of “separation anxiety” for horses. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 298, Article 106937. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2026.106937
• Gonzalez, C., Lawrence, A. B., Mendl, M., Robinson, E., Bombail, V., & Brown, S. M. (2026). Sex differences in the enjoyment of enrichment: affective bias testing confirms female rats prefer more playful and less vigorous tickling. Biology Letters (2005), 22(4). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2026.0075
• Jemberu, W. T., Lemma, M., Fatalo, T., Yitagesu, E., Doyle, R. E., Dione, M., & Knight-Jones, T. J. D. (2026). Impact evaluation of a small ruminant flock health intervention on animal health, welfare, and farmer income in Ethiopia. BMC Veterinary Research, 22(1), Article 222. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-026-05397-9

4. Presentation: Professor Eddie Clutton presented at the “3Rs in One Health Preclinical Research” conference sponsored by Laboratory Animal Veterinary Association and hosted by the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) at Weybridge, Surrey. Presentation: “The Case Against NMBA Use in Laboratory Animals”.
5. BONUS: Dr Sarah Brown has recorded a short seminar summarising the Gonzalez publication (above) recorded seminar on the topic 

Updates - 2026

Updates - 2025

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