What Animal Affairs is building
A transdisciplinary research hub and global network studying human-animal systems. No institution currently synthesizes what is known about animals in society across disciplines, sectors, and geographies — that is the gap we are documenting, and the function we are building.
Engraved at Chauvet Cave roughly 36,000 years ago — the earliest record of people trying to understand animals. What's changed since isn't the attention. It's that the record has never been pulled into one place.
Research themes
Ethics & Animal Law
The normative and legal frameworks that govern how animals are treated, and how those frameworks vary across jurisdictions and sectors.
Animal Health
The veterinary science and field-level evidence base for disease prevention, management, and production system health.
Human-Animal-Environment Nexus
The socio-ecological drivers connecting animal health to human health and environmental systems — One Health made concrete.
Biosecurity & Biosafety
Outbreak preparedness, surveillance systems, and the regulatory frameworks that determine how fast a response can move.
Antimicrobial Resistance
The economics and epidemiology of AMR in livestock systems, drawing on international standards bodies and field-level data.
Sustainable Development
Where animal health systems intersect with food security, economic resilience, and the broader Sustainable Development Goals.
Who we're looking for
Researchers working at disciplinary intersections without a natural institutional home — mid-career researchers whose work crosses sectors or species, and established researchers who want a cross-disciplinary platform for work that sits outside their primary field.
How researchers engage
This isn't a membership organization. Engagement is flexible, and defined by what's useful to you. Current ways of working together:
Expert spotlight or Q&A
A structured interview published on the Animal Affairs site and LinkedIn, positioning your work within the broader field.
Research feature
We summarize and contextualize a paper or project for a policy and cross-disciplinary audience, with full attribution.
Knowledge mobilization support
Help translating research into formats that reach policymakers, funders, and practitioners.
Network connections
Introductions to other researchers, institutions, or policy actors working on related questions.
As the hub scales, this will grow to include co-authored synthesis reports, convenings and roundtables, and contribution to evidence assessment products.
What you get
Reach beyond your discipline
An audience of policymakers, funders, journalists, practitioners, and researchers in adjacent fields.
Attribution & visibility
Recognition for your work, especially transdisciplinary work that doesn't fit neatly into one venue.
A global network
Connection to researchers working on shared questions rather than shared methods, wherever they're based.
Early-mover credibility
Association with an institution positioning itself as the authoritative body for evidence on animals in society — and a platform that treats your expertise as the content, not as promotion for us.
Who's behind the research
Dr. Guillaume Lhermie
Convenes the hub's research agenda and global network, based at the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, with a focus on translating evidence into policy.
Affiliated Researchers
A growing network of researchers contributing studies, briefs, and field data across the hub's six research themes.
Communications & Policy Team
Translates research into briefs, media coverage, and stakeholder-facing materials built to be read outside the academy.
Working in this space? We'd like to hear from you.
Whether you're a researcher, a funder, or a policymaker, there's a way to work with the hub.
Get in touch