Next level collaboration: towards responsible innovation for behavioural phenotyping in farm animals

Animal production is shifting towards systems in which larger groups of animals are subjected to more space and structures to display a wider range of behaviours. However, in these human-created groups, animal welfare can be affected by harmful social interactions, such as tail biting in pigs and feather pecking in laying hens. AI-based technologies offer opportunities to research the functioning of these groups and to develop novel genetic and environmental intervention strategies. This is the aim of the IMAGEN project funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The project activities are situated in a societal context that is characterized by discussions on animal use, welfare, public health and environmental sustainability. Complex societal challenges like this can only be tackled by real collaboration between different disciplines. The IMAGEN project addresses this ambition by involving a multidisciplinary research team which also includes societal and industry partners. However, additional efforts are necessary to create awareness and knowledge about the ethical dimensions related to the project topics. To practise dealing with socio-ethical questions in research and innovation, we organised a workshop for all project partners. In this paper, we discuss the results of this workshop and our follow-up strategy which includes a tailor-made approach to reflection based on the questions and needs of the project partners. During the workshop it became clear that institutional ethics committees were not seen as sufficient to stimulate genuine reflection. For this, participants considered transparency, trust, an open working culture and good relationships among project members as crucial. Participants also argued for an approach in which ‘everyone’ is involved. However, who was meant by ‘everyone’ seemed more difficult to define. We identified a field of tension between university and industry partners. For universities, it was deemed easy to be open and achieve ‘something good’ through research while companies are guided by competitive advantage. With this practical approach to transdisciplinary collaboration, we facilitate the reflection on ethical challenges and the contribution to sustainable animal production throughout the project.