UFAW Award

The awardees will receive their awards and speak about their work at the UFAW Online Animal Welfare Conference on June 20 and 21, 2023.

The UFAW Medal recognizes the exceptional achievements of individual scientists* who have made fundamental contributions to the advancement of animal welfare over a number of years. The winner of the 2023 UFAW Medal is Professor Per Jensen, Professor of Ethology at Linköping University, Sweden. In the category of Young Women Scientists of the Year in Animal Welfare, Sara Hintze was awarded jointly with Jordan Hampton from the University of Melbourne.

According to the judges' statement, "Sara Hintze was nominated for the award in recognition of her impressive scholarly activities and commitment to classroom teaching, on-farm research mentoring, and contributions to public education and outreach in the field of animal welfare.

Through her work, Sara approaches contemporary issues related to animal emotional states in unique ways. During her doctoral research, Sara addressed the concept of judgment bias and successfully developed a novel, cross-species paradigm for assessing emotion in animals. Her current work on animal boredom combines behavioral and cognitive approaches from human psychology to explore what boredom means for breeding pigs. In addition, Sara enjoys working conceptually, as evidenced by her publications on individuality, disenhancement, and positive well-being, including flow."

The BOKU laureate is delighted to receive this international award and also takes this opportunity to pay tribute to her four-legged research partners*: "Anyone who has had the opportunity to spend time with pigs knows what wonderful creatures with individual personalities these animals are. Learning more about the emotions of these and other farmed animals while creating awareness of their emotional lives and individuality in the general population is what motivates and drives me," Hintze said.

The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) is an international, independent, scientific and educational animal welfare charity and membership society. UFAW's vision is a world in which the welfare of all animals affected by humans is maximized through a scientific understanding of their needs and how to meet them. UFAW promotes an evidence-based approach to animal welfare by funding scientific research, supporting the careers of animal welfare scientists, and disseminating knowledge about animal welfare to both experts and the general public. 

 www.ufaw.org.uk/