Philosopher to Lead New Animal Sentience Center
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) will be launching a new center focused on “studying the feelings of other animals scientifically” making use of “the emerging science of animal sentience to design better policies, laws and ways of caring for other animals.”
The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience will be led by LSE professor of philosophy Jonathan Birch, author of, among other things, the recently published The Edge of Sentience.
Funded by a £4 million donation from the Jeremy Coller Foundation, the Centre will bring together researchers across a range of disciplines—philosophy, veterinary medicine, evolutionary biology, comparative psychology, neuroscience, behavioural science, computer science, artificial intelligence, economics, and law—to develop and promulgate ideas relevant to policy and advocacy work regarding animals.
The Centre will be up and running in autumn this year.
Further information here.
Excellent! I look forward to the research that will come out of this.
Congratulations! great news for the field of study
It’s worth mentioning that Birch’s latest book is permanently open-access through OUP
https://academic.oup.com/book/57949
And the book is very worth reading. Opening up new questions by subtly shifting the focus of attention from thought or mind to sentience. Approachable too for non philosophers, which is often a good sign. Surely a good founding brick for a centre of interdisciplinary research.
This might be of interest to some readers: my bibliography on animal ethics, rights, and law.