Identifying and pursuing research priorities in animal welfare science enables evidence-based improvements across species and systems where welfare harm is greatest.
Animal welfare science occupies a critical position between ethical advocacy and practical intervention: it provides the evidence base that transforms welfare intuitions into specific, defensible, and actionable standards. Research priorities in welfare science are shaped by the intersection of scale — how many animals are affected — uncertainty — where evidence is weakest — and tractability — where improvements are most feasible. Invertebrate sentience, fish pain and positive welfare, wild animal suffering, and effective positive welfare measurement represent frontiers where research investment could support welfare improvements affecting the largest numbers of animals. Welfare economics approaches that ask which interventions produce the most welfare improvement per unit of resource add crucial practical guidance for advocates and funders.