A call for CARE in animal behaviour: An holistic ethical research framework
Institute Seminar by Nora Slania & Gal Badihi
- New location: Bücklestrasse
- Date: Nov 11, 2025
- Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Nora Slania & Gal Badihi
- Gal Badihi is currently an Alexander van Humboldt research fellow at the University of Göttingen, German Primate Center. Her work focuses on the evolution of the different social and communicative strategies, primarily in chimpanzees. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Conservation, along with a Masters and PhD in Psychology from the University of St Andrews. She combines field observations with statistical models and social network analysis to describe the breadth and evolution of social behaviour and communication across different groups of wild chimpanzees. Through this work Gal developed a keen interest in conducting and developing ethical research methods, which ensures equal consideration of the impact our research has on the animals, people, and environments with which we work. Alongside her fundamental research on the evolution of social behaviour, she regularly engages with issues surrounding animal conservation and welfare. She started the CARE framework collective in 2023 to promote meaningful and practical discussion surrounding ethical research. Nora Slania is PhD student at the Max Planck Institut of Animal Behaviour, with an interdisciplinary background in comparative psychology (MSc) and philosophy and linguistics (BA). For her PhD, Nora is studying learning strategies of wild chimpanzees. She investigates how social learning across behavioural contexts shapes skill acquisition and cultural repertoires and how exploratory, more independent learning, is influenced by individual characteristics and social environments. Her research is based on observational and experimental data that she collected over several years in Uganda. During the course of her studies, Nora developed a profound commitment to sustainability and global justice, and her work with wild chimpanzees, in particular field experiments, sparked and required extensive considerations on ethical research practices with wild animals. Following her field work, Nora joined the CARE framework collective, and she is now excited to see it grow.
- Location: Bückle St. 5a, 78467 Konstanz
- Room: Seminar room MPI-AB Bücklestrasse + Online
- Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
- Contact: nslania@ab.mpg.de
Despite increasing awareness of animal welfare, there are vast discrepancies between legal protections and recommended practices for different species, in different countries, and at different institutions. While many guidelines exist, these often target specific research contexts or species, leaving a gap in comprehensive ethical oversight across the entire research process. Within animal behaviour research there is a bias for considering ethics during only the methodology and design phase of the research process. This often means only the immediate impact on animals directly involved in research are accounted for. We argue that conducting ethical research extends beyond ensuring animal welfare during data collection, and should include conducting environmentally sustainable research practices, alongside the ethical treatment of people working within, and alongside, animal behaviour research. We offer the Consult, Approve, Research, and Evaluate (CARE) framework to improve scientific integrity, transparency, and ethical practices within the field of animal behaviour. Our framework is designed to distribute accountability at every level of the academic system: from individual researchers to their institutions, funding bodies, and publishers. We pitch this framework as a ‘version 1.0’ to recognise the fast-evolving nature of ethical standards in animal behaviour research and to allow space for improvement. CARE provides a necessary infrastructure for addressing systemic biases and ensuring ethically sound, socially responsible, and environmentally sustainable animal behaviour research.
The MPI-AB Seminar Series is open to members of MPI and Uni Konstanz. The zoom link is published each week in the MPI-AB newsletter.