[PUBLIC] Priority Research Questions for Animal Advocacy

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K
1	Research question	Category	Intervention	Outcome	Organization/individual already working on it	Email address to a contact person working on the research	Organizations/individuals interested in conducting this research	Email address to a contact person interested in working on it	Question added by	Sources	Notes

2	What are the long-term effects of improving welfare standards on the consumption of animal products? Does promoting welfare reforms increase the comfort with, and consumption of, animal products (complacency effect)?	Outcomes	n/a	Improvement of welfare standards					ACE	The Effects of Exposure to Information about Animal Welfare Reforms on Animal Farming Opposition: A Randomized Experiment Impact Of Corporate Commitments On Public Attitudes Summary of Evidence for Foundational Questions in Effective Animal Advocacy	See, e.g., this paper
3	How can we better assess the medium- and long-term effects of interventions in general?	Methods	n/a	Cross-cutting					ACE
4	How can we account for the counterfactual and the influence of other organizations when assessing the effectiveness of policy, institutional, or corporate outreach campaigns?	Methods	n/a						ACE
5	How generalizable is evidence on the effectiveness of corporate outreach to the Global South?	Interventions	Corporate outreach	Improvement of welfare standards					ACE	https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/research-briefs/what-is-the-effect-of-cage-free-corporate-outreach-on-egg-laying-hens-welfare/ African Landscape Research Report Corporate campaigns affect 9 to 120 years of chicken life per dollar spent
6	What is the ideal way to distribute resources among different types of outcomes, and how will the ideal distribution change over time? (For instance, is it best to influence public opinion first and legal change later? Is the reverse the case?)	Outcomes	n/a	Cross-cutting					ACE	https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/reports/allocation-of-movement-resources/ Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum 2023 summary
7	How probable is it that cell-cultured meat will gain widespread consumer acceptance, and to what timescale? To what extent will consumers replace conventional meat with cell-cultured meat?	Outcomes	n/a	Increased Availability of Animal-Free Products					ACE	A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF CELL-CULTURED MEAT ACCEPTANCE – 2020	As raised in ACE's report (see left). For example: What are consumer acceptance levels of cell-cultured meat in lower- and middle-income countries? What do acceptance levels of other related novel technologies tell us about the likely acceptance levels of cell-cultured products? What messages or interventions will most improve low levels of consumer acceptance?
8	How can the impact of animal rights work be better assessed in countries where the animal advocacy movement is less established?	Countries	n/a	n/a					ACE	https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/animal-advocacy-in-india/#questions-further-consideration	Raised in ACE's report on animal advocacy in India (see left), but useful to consider more broadly
9	How does the effectiveness of interventions vary between countries?	Countries	n/a	n/a					ACE
10	What is the (cost) effectiveness of corporate commitment implementation work? Does it increase the likelihood of sustained implementation? Which types of implementation work are more/less effective? What is the cost effectiveness of corporate outreach with vs. without implementation follow up?	Interventions	Corporate outreach	Improvement of welfare standards					ACE	Corporate Campaigns: determining the scale of the ask Corporate campaigns affect 9 to 120 years of chicken life per dollar spent https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/will-companies-meet-their-animal-welfare-commitments
11	How are movement resources allocated across different countries, and how does distribution among different interventions differ by country?	Countries	n/a	n/a					ACE	Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum 2023 summary
12	How cost effective are corporate outreach campaigns for improved welfare of farmed fishes?	Interventions	Corporate outreach	Improvement of welfare standards					ACE	ACE charity reviews	See this draft of a research report (former ACE fellow project)
13	What are the medium- to long-term effects of corporate outreach, particularly with regard to companies actually implementing the pledges they have made?	Interventions	Corporate outreach	Improvement of welfare standards					ACE	https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/reports/corporate-outreach-2014/ Corporate Campaigns: determining the scale of the ask Corporate campaigns affect 9 to 120 years of chicken life per dollar spent https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/will-companies-meet-their-animal-welfare-commitments https://farmanimalwelfare.substack.com/p/a-year-of-wins-for-farmed-animals
14	What are effective ways to grow the animal advocacy movement?	Interventions	Capacity building	Stronger animal advocacy movement					ACE
15	What is the state of evidence on the tractability of affecting wild animal welfare?	Animal groups	n/a	n/a					ACE	Why I No Longer Prioritize Wild Animal Welfare
16	What are the effects of increasing the availability of animal-free foods on animal product consumption? Are alternative to animal products actually used to replace animal products, and especially those that involve the most suffering? Which plant-based offerings are being used as substitutes versus complements for animal products and why?	Outcomes	n/a	Increased Availability of Animal-Free Products					ACE	https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/research-briefs/what-are-the-effects-of-increasing-the-availability-of-animal-free-foods-on-animal-product-consumption/ Price-, Taste-, and Convenience-Competitive Plant-Based Meat Would Not Currently Replace Meat	From ACE's report on this (see left): "All of the field studies we reviewed were conducted in university cafeterias in the U.S. and the U.K., and therefore, we are not confident that the effects are generalizable to other regions or settings. We believe this topic would benefit from future studies in other regions and settings to generate more high-quality, relevant data."
17	What are the economics of the animal protein and plant-based alternatives markets? Is the best way to reduce the quantity of animal consumption to increase its cost of production, reduce demand, and increase demand elasticity by offering good alternatives? If so, how can we quantify this?	Outcomes	n/a	Decreased Consumption of Animal Products					ACE	Food System Research Fund Domination And Exploitation: Understanding Industry Costs For Chicken, Egg, And Fish Products In The United States, Brazil, And China	Food System Research Fund are exploring this through a research project (see left)
18	What are the cultural paradigms or fundamental drivers that support (i) meat-eating (ii) vegetarian diets in non-high-income cultures of the world? How can they be changed or transitioned to a mainly plant-based diet that is nourishing and health-promoting?	Interventions	Cross-cutting	Cross-cutting					ACE
19	How do diminishing returns affect the effectiveness of corporate outreach campaigns? (Cage-free or in general)	Interventions	Corporate outreach	Improvement of welfare standards					ACE	https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/reports/corporate-outreach-2014/ Corporate Campaigns: determining the scale of the ask Corporate campaigns affect 9 to 120 years of chicken life per dollar spent https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/will-companies-meet-their-animal-welfare-commitments https://farmanimalwelfare.substack.com/p/a-year-of-wins-for-farmed-animals
20	What are the supply-side drivers of rising meat and animal products consumption (e.g. government subsidies to industry, government authority, ramped up production in search of markets, advertising from suppliers, public/private partnerships) as contrasted to individual consumers demanding more animal-based food?	Interventions	Cross-cutting	Cross-cutting					ACE
21	What messaging/strategy could make various movements such as environment, racial equality, workers rights’ in LMICs support and embrace animal rights or the fight against "factory farming" in their own campaigns?	Interventions	Individual outreach, institutional outreach	Stronger animal advocacy movement					ACE
22	Which welfare asks should we make, especially with regards to aquatic animals?	Outcomes	n/a	Improvement of welfare standards					ACE
23	How and when do advocates/charities use empirical research to guide their work?	Interventions	Research	Stronger animal advocacy movement			Faunalytics published their report in 2024		ACE	https://faunalytics.org/research-and-data-as-tools/	Charity Entrepeneurship reviewed different types of animal research here, with some consideration of how & when research is used. Faunalytics say they will be working on this starting soon (research currently in planning phase).
24	What is the effect of legal work (including legal campaigns, legal enforcement, lawsuits, etc.) on improving animal welfare standards?	Interventions	Legal or policy work	Stronger animal advocacy movement, Improvement of welfare standards, Increased availability of animal-free products					ACE	https://animalcharityevaluators.org/research/research-briefs/what-is-the-effect-of-legal-work-on-improving-animal-welfare-standards/	From ACE's report on this (see left): "Due to the multiple factors and parties involved, it is difficult to find empirical evidence that lobbying routinely and directly leads to the introduction of new laws or the modification of existing laws. Furthermore, animal welfare laws may not be fully implemented or enforced once enacted. The fact that laws are largely nation-based also makes it difficult to find evidence for the large-scale, international effects of lobbying."
25	How can we measure whether an intervention strengthens the animal advocacy movement?	Methods	n/a	Stronger Animal Advocacy Movement					ACE
26	What is the cost-effectiveness of Better Chicken Commitment (BCC or ECC) corporate campaigns?	Interventions	Corporate outreach	Improvement of welfare standards						Corporate campaigns affect 9 to 120 years of chicken life per dollar spent
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