New Tools for the Evaluation of Animal Welfare

Dear Colleagues,

Research applied to the study of animal welfare, which embraces different scientific areas and a wide range of professionals such as biologists, veterinarians, psychologists, bioethicists and legislators, has increased significantly in recent years. Several techniques are used to measure animal welfare, including physiological, behavioral and immunological responses to different environmental stimuli.

Very recently, much attention has been paid to the study of new methods for the evaluation of animal welfare through the analysis of animal emotional state. The latter, despite being a very promising tool for animal welfare measurement, remains an extremely challenging research area.

Scientific methods and techniques are constantly under development and revision to aid in the design of highly reliable indicators for the evaluation of animal welfare. We invite authors to contribute original manuscripts that address any aspects of animal welfare to this Special Issue of Animals. Topics of special interest include techniques used to study animal emotional state and the human–animal relationship which may improve the understanding of animal welfare measurement.

Prof. Dr. Marcello Siniscalchi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.