Welfare Research Priorities: Where Science Can Save the Most Animals

How welfare researchers prioritize species, systems, and interventions to achieve the greatest reduction in animal suffering through targeted scientific inquiry.

Key Facts

The Animal Welfare Institute and similar bodies use scale, neglectedness, and tractability frameworks to set research priorities.
Shrimp and prawns number in the hundreds of billions farmed annually, yet welfare research on crustaceans began only recently.
Broiler chicken welfare interventions — such as slower-growing breeds and better lighting — are among the most studied and implementable.
Fish welfare research has accelerated since the 2013 Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness recognized fish as likely sentient.
Pain recognition in livestock has improved dramatically; standardized pain scales now exist for cattle, pigs, and poultry.
Wild animal welfare science is growing, with new journals and research groups dedicated to non-captive animal suffering.
Invertebrate welfare remains under-researched despite billions of individuals being affected by farming, fishing, and pesticide use.

Welfare Considerations

Welfare science faces resource constraints that demand careful prioritization. Research on broiler chickens, farmed fish, and sows in gestation crates has yielded actionable interventions with large-scale impact. Crustacean and insect welfare are emerging frontiers where even basic sentience questions remain unresolved. Wild animal welfare science — including population-level interventions for parasites, disease, and starvation — is nascent but potentially high-impact. Effective prioritization requires cross-disciplinary collaboration between ethologists, veterinarians, economists, and policy specialists. Funding from both private philanthropy and government sources is essential to close the gap between scientific knowledge and practical reform.

What You Can Do

Support academic programs and research centers dedicated to animal sentience and welfare science.
Advocate for research funding directed at neglected species such as farmed fish, shrimp, and insects.
Follow and share findings from leading welfare journals including Animal Welfare and Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
Encourage companies sourcing animal products to fund independent welfare research.
Engage with effective animal advocacy organizations that use rigorous prioritization frameworks.