Animal welfare science is a rapidly advancing interdisciplinary field. Understanding current research frontiers helps advocates, policymakers, and the public engage with evidence-based welfare improvement.
Animal welfare science has transformed from a primarily veterinary discipline focused on health and productivity into an interdisciplinary field addressing the subjective experience of animals across species. Key current research areas include: measuring positive affective states rather than only negative ones; developing welfare assessment tools for previously neglected species including fish, invertebrates, and insects; understanding how precision livestock farming and technology can be harnessed for welfare monitoring; investigating the welfare implications of genetic selection across species; and developing welfare economics approaches that allow comparison of welfare improvements across interventions. The frontier of sentience research is continually expanding the circle of moral consideration as evidence accumulates for complexity across more species.