Animal Welfare Science, Ethics & Law

Core Courses: Aims & Objectives

Key Research skills
To ensure that all students enrolled in the programme receive advanced and evidence-based training in the key skills essential for any modern research career and for the courses that they will take later in the programme.  This includes principles of Scientific Writing and Effective Communication in English, Introduction to the Programming Environment R, Advanced Statistics, and Experimental Design and Power Analysis.

Animal ethics
To provide students with a critical awareness of the principles of relevant ethical frameworks and how this relates to legal considerations and different forms of human use of animals.

Animal welfare science
To provide students with an evidence-based critical and detailed understanding of welfare assessment methodologies and practical experience of how welfare issues are addressed at sites that keep animals for different forms of human use, including research on wild animals.

Independent research project

Legislation related to animal welfare
To provide students with a rigorous evidence-based understanding of the different pieces of legislation underlying the use of animals in scientific research, in zoos and in farms and wildlife crime. The main focus will be how we will interface with legislation as an animal welfare practitioner.

Optional Courses:

Biology of suffering
To provide students with an advanced understanding of issues on consciousness, sentience and suffering in animals and how this relates to ethical and legal considerations.

Enrichment of animals in captive environments
To provide students with the underlying principles that will guide enrichment and the design of enclosures and encourages students to creatively think about their own solution to welfare issues.

Care of captive animals
To provide students with a critical awareness of issues relating to care of captive animals and relate these to legislation and welfare science.

Assessment of physiological state
To provide students with an evidence-based understanding of methods and techniques used to assess physiological state of wild animals and provide them with the competence to identify the health state of wild animal and to respond appropriately to this.