Photo by Jussi Lehtonen
Our research ethics
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A tenet of our work is that, whenever possible, designing for animals is best achieved by designing with them and, in this regard, the ethical and methodological perspective with which we approach the process is key.
However, legal frameworks currently regulating the involvement of animals in research are fundamentally process-centred rather than animal-centred. This includes the framework of the 3Rs (principles of Replacement, Reduction and Refinement), which is widely regarded as the gold standard for humane research. To support animal-centred research and design, we needed a more advanced ethical approach, which we developed over time and which comprises both normative and situated ethics, as well as an ethics informed by political philosophies of justice.
A normative ethics framework
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Above and beyond abiding by existing regulations, we developed an ethics framework grounded in four key principles:
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relevance, which requires working only with animals for whom the research is directly relevant and beneficial
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impartiality, which requires protecting all participants in virtue of their role rather than their characteristics (e.g. age, sex, species, or assumed levels of sentience)
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welfare, which requires ensuring all participants’ physical and psychological wellbeing at all times
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consent, which needs to be obtained from all participants, including animals.
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For us animals’ consent takes two complementary and equally necessary forms:
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mediated consent obtained from human guardians who know the animal well and understand the implications of their involvement, who have their best interests at heart and the legal authority to decide on their behalf
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contingent consent provided by animal participants, who must be allowed to continually assess the situation and choose what to do, whether and how to engage or withdraw, while appropriate monitoring of any manifestations of dissent must enable guardians to respond accordingly.
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In a nutshell, doing animal-centred research and design implies respecting participants’ autonomy and safeguarding their integrity by:
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working in contexts that are habitual for the animal
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being unobtrusive and non-disruptive of their habitual activities
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giving animals control + space for expression
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and using only positive forms of interaction.
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Further readings​
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Mancini, C., Nannoni, E. (2022). Relevance, Impartiality, Welfare and Consent: Principles of an Animal-Centered Research Ethics. Frontiers in Animal Science 3:800186.​
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Mancini, C. (2017). Towards an animal-centred ethics for Animal–Computer Interaction. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 98 pp. 221–233.
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A situated ethics toolkit
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While having a normative framework is very important, on its own this may not be enough to support field researchers as they deal with emerging ethical challenges. To address this gap, we also adopt an ethics toolkit that aims to support animal-centred research and design by enabling researchers to make ethically sound situated decisions as their work progresses.
The toolkit comprises three templates, each of which asks a series of questions aiming to articulate:
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the team members' individual ethical baselines
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the project's ethical baseline
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a series of ethical guiding statements to better prepare designers to make ethical situated decisions.
The application of the toolkit helps field researchers to clearly and systematically articulate a project's ethos and understand the ethical stance that guides the research team's interactions with participating animals and humans alike. The toolkit also fosters a practice of active reflection within research teams, which helps them to maintain their commitment to the project's ethos in the face of unexpected ethical challenges.
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Further readings​
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Ruge, L., Mancini, C. (2022). An Ethics Toolkit to Support Animal-Centered Research and Design. Front. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8: 891493.
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A notion of animal-centredness
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While ACI researchers aspire to design animal-centred technology, they must operate within socio-economic systems that are not necessarily animal-centred. This creates a tension between researchers’ endeavour to address the immediate needs of animals in specific situations through technological interventions, on the one hand, and these interventions’ wider implications and consequences for the situation and life of various animal stakeholders beyond specific ACI projects, on the other hand.
Like all design, ACI is a political activity in that it involves making decisions that affect others, so ACI researchers need support to reflect upon and negotiate the boundaries between their research activities and the wider contexts in which these take place. Drawing from literature on political interaction design and on political philosophies of animal justice, we adopt a political notion of animal-centredness and apply strategies and commitments to support ACI researchers’ political engagement in animal-centred design.
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In particular, our commitments include:
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disruption involves questioning systems, norms and practices that go against animals’ basic capabilities and that designers would like to address.
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reconfiguration involves redefining design frameworks whose current human-centric definition legitimises the dismissal of animals’ role in the design process or justifies design outcomes that discriminate against them.
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pollination involves seeking opportunities to enable animal-centred values to influence systems and practices which involve animals but which are not animal-centred, to help such systems evolve towards animal justice.
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Further readings​
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Mancini, C., Hirsch-Matsioulas, O., Metcalfe, D. (2022). Politicising Animal-Computer Interaction: an Approach to Political Engagement with Animal-Centred Design. Proc. Ninth Intl. Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction in co-operation with ACM, ACI2022, ACM Digital Library, Art. 1, pp. 1-11.
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An extended notion of responsibility
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With emerging technologies powered by AI and IoT affecting animals in unprecedented ways, a question for the ACI community is how to expand the field’s influence so that the computing interactions to which animals are exposed do not harm but benefit them. To this end, we invite ACI researchers to:
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focus on the risks that technology poses for animals and the impacts of technology that does not necessarily target them, as well as on the benefits of technologies that target them
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re-frame human-centric ethical frameworks produced by governance bodies from a multispecies perspective against which to foreground impacts of technologies on animals
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explicitly relate ACI work to global societal priorities set by governance bodies against which to highlight how an animal-centred perspective can support those.
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For us, ACI researchers' responsibility goes beyond designing technology for and with animals to expand the field's influence for the benefit of animals and wider society. ACI is a call to embrace the challenge of giving animals representation amongst anthropocentric pressures and, despite necessary compromises, to continue to push for animal-centred technological innovation.
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Further readings​
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Mancini, C. (2023). Responsible ACI: Expanding the Influence of Animal-Computer Interaction, Proc. Tenth Intl. Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction in co-operation with ACM, ACI2023, ACM Digital Library, Art. 3., pp. 1-9.
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