Our wishlist for 2023
November 16, 2022
As we approach the year’s end, we’re busy planning how to pursue a better future for wild animals in 2023. Some of our biggest projects already have funding — for example, Open Philanthropy is supporting our grants program through the middle of next year — but others might stagnate without an extra boost. This giving season, your end-of-year contributions can make it possible for us to achieve even more for wild animals and the community of scientists who study their welfare.
Here are five projects we hope to launch in 2023 that are still in need of funding. It’s hard to say what the new year will bring, and it’s likely these projects will change and evolve over the coming months. Still, we’re excited to share our ideas with you. If you’re as inspired by them as we are, please lend your support to the cause.
Executive Director Cameron Meyer Shorb
Fund an in-person seminar on wild animal welfare
Next year, we want to bring members of the wild animal welfare community together on a more frequent basis by hosting virtual and in-person seminars. These events will help students and scientists engage in discourse on exciting topics related to wild animal welfare, ideally springboarding ideas for further research. Of course, bringing people together comes with a number of travel costs, such as food and lodging. Extra funding from donors like you could allow more people to attend and boost participation in cases where affordability is an issue. Since we’re in the early stages of growing a community dedicated to wild animal welfare research, any work we can do now to improve accessibility will help us increase diversity as we grow.
Support students interested in studying wild animal welfare
Most of us know someone who discovered their research field as an undergraduate student, inspired by a talk or professor who introduced them to a new and exciting concept. It’s hard to quantify the impact these kinds of interactions can have, but since undergraduates are more likely to be able to switch career directions than more established academics, they may be a particularly promising group to engage. Additional funding could help us conduct events aimed at undergraduate students, travel to meet with undergraduates in person, and provide financial support to undergraduate groups studying wild animal welfare.
Help us overcome language barriers to reach scientists
By offering events and content in the English language only, we realize we’re missing a large audience of potential wild animal welfare researchers who primarily use other languages. Though we’re uncertain what our efforts might look like, we’re highly interested in scoping how we might reach scientists who are excluded due to language barriers. More funds could help us hire a language consultant to explore which languages would be most effective to prioritize, or commission a feasibility study and evaluate how we might build connections with people whose work is conducted in languages other than English. In the short term, purchasing transcription software could help us pilot bilingual virtual seminars. We also acknowledge that the English language dominates scientific publishing, so we’d like to explore options for our research community, such as pre-publication editing services and English language training courses.
Make more research papers open access
Scientific research has the power to hasten progress for wild animals, but that momentum can slow when papers are hidden behind a paywall. In order to make our papers open access, we typically have to pay additional fees, which can cost thousands of dollars per paper, depending on the journal. With additional funds, we could ensure that everyone has access to our research. We could also support access to scientific wild animal welfare content by covering our grantees’ open access fees when they publish.
Increase the reach of wild animal welfare researchers
Wild Animal Initiative grantee Katie LaBarbera
Wild Animal Initiative finds conferences highly valuable for our mission — we get to share our message with key audiences, and we invariably connect or reconnect with people who can advance interest in the wild animal welfare sciences. Likewise, scientists who study wild animal welfare can act as ambassadors for the cause, and increasing their presence at conferences will help others learn about the discipline and its growth. But while the results are worth it, attendance costs add up fast. International travel, hotel rooms, meals, and registration fees easily reach into four figures. With more funding, we could offset the costs for aligned scientists to gather, network, and spread the word at conferences around the world.
