Happy New Year for 2019

Happy New Year for 2019

As 2019 begins we would like to thank all our collaborators, colleagues, friends, and supporters for their help, enthusiasm and dedication to making the world a better place for animals, and for the people who depend on them, over the past year.

2018 was a busy year for the JMICAWE team – we welcomed two new members of staff to the team: Dr Fiona Lang joined us for a year to work with the team on a project funded by Animal Welfare Foundation to determine the priority animal welfare issues for different species in the UK; and Dr Louise Connelly has recently joined the team for two years to develop our digital learning materials. Part of Louise’s role will be to help develop resources for, and promote, our Dog Welfare Assessment App which we launched in May. We are also delighted with the recognition of the dedication and hard work of one of our veterinary nurses, Hayley Walters, who received an MBE from the Prince of Wales in April for services to animal welfare.

Over the last 12 months we have delivered teaching in animal behaviour, welfare and ethics to our undergraduate students throughout the year; delivered a short course on animal welfare to final year students in May; and supported the 2^nd student-led Veterinary Ethics Conference in September. We have also taught more than 220 MSc students on our 3 Masters programmes, either on the campus in Edinburgh or worldwide through our online MSc programmes. Internationally we have been involved in the delivery of teaching, training and workshops on animal welfare, animal behaviour and veterinary clinical skills in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Japan and India. We also continue to promote the vital role of veterinary nurses in animal welfare and are working with colleagues in India and Sri Lanka to develop curricula and resources to support this.

We have been working closely with a number of different organisations, nationally and internationally, in developing animal welfare activities and have been part of the WSAVA team that developed international guidelines for animal welfare. We were also very pleased to be able to support the International Veterinary Students Association in their animal welfare conference in Munich; UFAW and City University in the Animal Welfare Beyond Borders conference in Hong Kong; and ICCAW for the Farm Animal Welfare conference in Beijing.  

We look forward to a similarly productive year in 2019, and wish you all a very happy and healthy year in all your activities to improve animal welfare.