Tenth Annual Meeting of the AWRN
Date: 17/09/2026
Chester Zoo, Chester, England
“AWRN at 10: Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future”
Took place at Chester Zoo from 16th to 18th September 2026
Theme of meeting
The theme of the meeting was “AWRN at 10: Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future”.
Plenary talks were given by:
Donald Broom, Emeritus Professor of Animal Welfare at University of Cambridge talking about “A look back at, and forwards from, the last decade of animal welfare science”.
Lisa Holmes, Lead Conservation Scientist in Behaviour & Welfare at Chester Zoo discussing “From data to decisions: How science shapes zoo animal welfare”.
Rick D’Eath, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Welfare at SRUC, presenting on “Stasis or change in animal welfare policy: From Animal Machines to the Danish pig election”.
Kate Lewis, Postdoctoral Researcher at MRC Centre for Macaques giving the Early Career Plenary talk on “Captive animal ethograms: reflections on the past, strategies for the future”.
Robert Hyde, co-founder of Vet Vision AI giving the Impact Plenary on “Can We Monitor Welfare at Scale With AI Without Losing the Human in the Loop?”.
In addition, we had talks on a range of other topics, breakout groups on “Making animal welfare data FAIRer”, “Collaborations between academics and practitioners: ‘What’, ‘Who’ and ‘How’?” and “Getting involved in EU welfare research and networks” and speed networks. Plus our delegates got to explore the zoo in their lunch breaks!
Resources from the Meeting
A short report on the meeting has been kindly written by Amanda Bartlett (University of Portsmouth) and can be accessed on this link:
Videos of the talks and other resources will be uploaded soon.
