It organises symposia, conferences and meetings, and publishes books, videos, technical reports and the quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal Animal Welfare.
UFAW has supported a wide range of project types, through the following:[5] In 1926, the University of London Animal Welfare Society (ULAWS) was founded by Major Charles Hume.
Examples of more recent activities include funding of the work, at the University of Bristol, investigating the use of the concept of cognitive bias to assess the subjective emotional state of an animal – pessimistic or optimistic – and hence their welfare.
As part of its remit to educate and inform on animal welfare, UFAW has also produced a series of books, in collaboration with Wiley-Blackwell Science, that seek to provide an authoritative source of information on worldwide developments, current thinking and best practice in the field of animal welfare science and technology.
The HSA and UFAW are financially independent but have worked closely together for many years to advance farm animal welfare.
UFAW Research Fellow Dr Russell, along with his laboratory assistant and co-author Rex Burch, published the results of their work in 1959 as The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique (reprinted in 1992).
[22] This publication introduced the concept of the 'Three Rs' – of Replacement, Reduction and Refinement – which in due course came to be adopted as the guiding principle for the welfare of research animals worldwide and is now required by regulatory authorities in many countries.