Social Science Research Topics for Animal Welfare

This is a list of social science research topics related to animal welfare, developed by researchers on the Open Phil farm animal welfare (FAW) team. 

We compiled this list because people often ask us for suggestions on topics that would be valuable to research. The primary audience for this document is students (undergrad, grad, high school) and researchers without significant budgets (since the topics we list here could potentially be answered using primarily desktop research).^[1]We plan to share a list of topics suited to primary empirical social science at a later date.

Additional context:

• We are not offering to fund research on these topics, and we are not necessarily offering to review or advise research on them.
  • In the interest of brevity, we have not provided much context for each topic. But if you are a graduate student or academic, we may be able to provide you with more detail on our motivation and our interpretation of the current literature. Please email Martin Gould with your questions, or any other feedback on this list.
• The topics covered in this document are the ones we find most interesting; for other lists of research topics, see here. We do not attempt to cover animal welfare science in our list, and the topics are listed in no particular order (we don’t place a higher priority on those listed first).
• In some areas, we are not fully up to date on the existing literature, so some of our questions may have been answered by research already conducted.
• We think it is generally valuable to use back-of-the-envelope calculations to explore ideas and findings.
• If you complete research on these topics, please feel free to share your work with us and the broader animal advocacy movement (one option is to post here). We’re happy to see published findings, working papers, and even detailed notes that you don’t intend to formally publish

Corporate commitments

1. By how many years do animal welfare corporate commitments speed up reforms that might happen anyway due to factors like government policy, individual consumer choices, or broad moral change?
   1. How does this differ by the type of reform? (For example, cage-free vs. Better Chicken Commitment?)
   2. How does this differ by country or geographical region (For example, the EU vs. Brazil?) 
2. What are the production costs associated with specific animal welfare reforms? Here is an example of such an analysis for the European Chicken Commitment.

Policy reform

1. Which jurisdictions are most amenable to FAW policy reform over the next 5-10 years? Which specific reform(s) are most tractable, and why?
2. To what extent is animal welfare a politically polarizing issue (i.e., clearly associated with a particular political affiliation)? Is this a barrier to reform? If so, how might political polarization of animal welfare be reduced?
3. How do corporate campaigns and policy reform interact with and potentially reinforce each other? 
   1. What conclusions should be drawn about the optimal timing of policy reform campaigns? 
4. What would be the cost-effectiveness of a global animal welfare benchmarking project? (That is, comparing FAW by country and by company, as a basis to drive competition. Similar models have been used in human rights and global development.)
5. Which international institutions (e.g., World Bank, WTO, IMF, World Organisation for Animal Health, UN agencies) have the most influence over animal welfare policy in emerging economies? What are the most promising ways to influence these institutions?
   1. Does this vary by geographical region (for example, Asia vs. Latin America)?

Alt protein

1. What percentage of plant-based meat alternative (PBMA) units/meals sold displace a unit/meal of meat?
   1. Is the displacement rate different across PBMA products? More specifically, does it differ between “next-generation” products like Beyond and Impossible vs. other PBMA products?
2. What types of meat are PBMA products displacing? For example, what’s the breakdown between beef, chicken, and fish?
   1. What other foods are PBMA products displacing? (For example, what fraction of PBMA units/meals are replacing tofu rather than chicken?)
3. How will displacement rates change if PBMA products improve? 
   1. What are the product qualities that are most important in driving this?
4. What share of the global meat market will PBMA and/or cultured meat products account for in 10, 30, or 50 years?
5. What is the impact on sales of labeling laws that restrict the terms that can be used to describe/advertise PBMAs and other plant-based products?
6. Are there clear ways in which non-PBMA plant-based products could be improved to increase uptake and displace meat consumption? 
7. What government alt protein R&D is most impactful and tractable to advocate for?
8. How can alt protein be supported most effectively by government policy (outside of government R&D)?

Dietary/mindset change

1. What are the rates of vegetarianism and veganism (collectively “veg*nism”) in populous countries (e.g., the US, China, India, EU countries)? How have these changed, if at all, over recent decades?
2. What percentage of people will be veg*n in 20, 50, or 100 years?
3. Which settings are most conducive to running rigorous experiments on dietary change interventions, and how can these settings be accessed/used? (For example, college cafeterias often allow researchers to use data on purchases, which means they don’t have to rely on self-reports.)
4. How cost-effective is online advertising in reducing meat consumption and/or bringing new advocates into the animal welfare movement?
   1. What about the cost-effectiveness of documentaries or other forms of mass media?
5. How impactful are meat advertising bans such as this one?
6. Has the success of animal advocacy efforts on social media changed over time (based on standard social media metrics and possibly other metrics)? If so, why might this be the case?
7. How impactful would it be to get more animal welfare content into TV shows and/or movies? If this seems promising, what are the best ways to achieve it?
8. How impactful would it be to get already sympathetic celebrities to speak up more about animal welfare? If this seems promising, what are the best ways to achieve it?

Movement building

1. The FAW movement has generally gotten less traction in low- and middle-income countries than it has in high-income countries. Should we expect this to change as emerging economies become richer? If so, over what timeframe?
   1. How strong is the relationship between country-level per capita income/wealth and FAW reform tractability?
2. How does an increase in the number of advocates in a given geography increase (or otherwise impact) the likelihood of finding cost-effective interventions there?

Other interventions

1. The UN estimates that 17% of food is wasted. Are there any cost-effective ways to help animals by reducing animal product food waste?
2. In the retail sector, how have the availability and sales of shrimp products changed over time? When retailers and food service companies drop shrimp products from their assortment, what are the most common reasons (e.g., environmental concerns)?
3. Are there datasets which don’t exist (and could be funded by philanthropy or others) that would increase the effectiveness of the animal welfare movement?
4. What are effective ways to influence the views of more thought leaders, policymakers, and other elites on animal welfare?
5. Where is the use of broiler cages increasing, and how prevalent are they in those areas? Are there any tractable interventions that could undermine those trends?
6. What are the most tractable and cost-effective interventions to improve wild animal welfare? 

Other questions

1. The Welfare Footprint Project has four ‘categories of pain intensity’, and it estimates the time spent in each category of pain given different farming systems (example). How might these categories be weighted to arrive at an overall welfare score?
2. The Welfare Footprint Project ruled some aspects of welfare out of scope, given a lack of academic literature on how they could be quantified (e.g. lack of control, fearfulness).^[2]See Chapter 9 in “Quantifying pain in laying hens”, under the heading ‘Important Considerations’ from page 11. How could these be incorporated quantitatively into a judgment on the welfare of animals in different farming systems?
3. Funding for farm animal welfare advocacy organizations has increased in recent years (even excluding Open Philanthropy funding) – why?
4. On balance, do wild animals have lives that are net positive or net negative?
   1. To make this more tractable, consider one species of animal in a single geography.