SCIENCE GROUP

The RSPCA Science Group is a centre of expertise which provides the scientific basis that helps enable the Society to advance animal welfare effectively.

What we do

A strength of the RSPCA is that it strives to base its policies, activities and approaches to promoting animal welfare on scientific evidence. This gives the organisation credibility with its supporters, the general public and decision-makers.

Expert knowledge

Our Science Group employs approximately 20 postgraduate and postdoctoral animal welfare scientists organised into four departments covering companion, farmed, animals in science and wildlife.

We aim to be an authority on a wide range of animal welfare science by gathering, assessing and presenting comprehensive scientific and technical information and advice on a range of issues.

Welfare advocates

We actively engage with policy and decision-makers in government, industry and the wider community, both nationally and internationally, in order to promote practical advances for animal welfare.

Our work to support the animal welfare activities of the RSPCA is wide ranging and includes, for example, the setting of the RSPCA standards for the welfare of farmed animals that underpin the RSPCA Assured scheme.

Overview of Science Group activities

The publication, RSPCA Science Group Review, is published annually and highlights the spectrum of activities undertaken by the four departments (companion animals, farm animals, animals in science and wildlife) within the Society's Science Group.

Read our latest Science Group Review of 2017, published in March 2018, online

Download our Science Group Review