- animal-welfare-science /
- Research /
- FWF Projects
About the Project
The project "COwWEL" aims to investigate food vulnerability, well-being, and sustainable food consumption. It focuses on socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, who have been underrepresented in research on healthy and sustainable nutrition. These groups are disproportionately affected by the consequences of unhealthy diets and food poverty and face difficulties accessing high-quality food, particularly due to the price increases of recent years.
Goals of the Project
The COwWEL project aims to develop strategies that promote healthy and sustainable consumption habits, especially in vulnerable groups. In collaboration with the base project "COwLEARNING for sustainable beef and dairy supply", pathways to more inclusive food systems will be identified.
Citizen Researchers
People from vulnerable groups are actively involved as citizen scientists (CS, more information about the concept of Citizen Science and current Austria-wide projects can be found on the following website: https://www.citizen-science.at.
The CS examine conditions that hinder or support healthy and sustainable nutrition in their groups. In addition to affordability and availability, a particular focus is placed on attitudes toward animals and concepts of animal well-being, as these can influence consumption behaviour. To date, little is known about these connections in people living in vulnerable circumstances.
Cooperation Partners and Target Groups
The project is carried out in collaboration between Vetmeduni Vienna and BOKU with Caritas Stadtteilarbeit, ensuring regular contact with the citizen researchers. The focus is on individuals from three vulnerable groups: Austrians with low income, Ukrainians, and Syrians or persons from other Arab countries.
Workshops and Activities
First Workshop (Summer 2025):
Citizen scientists discuss their own experiences with sustainable nutrition, generate hypotheses together, and develop initial steps for creating a questionnaire as a survey tool.
Questionnaire Development (Summer – Autumn 2025):
Based on the first workshop and with feedback from the CS, a questionnaire is developed to identify factors that promote or hinder healthy and sustainable food consumption in vulnerable groups. The questionnaire is translated into the native languages of the CS.
Surveys (Winter 2025/26):
After training and with ongoing support from the COwWEL project team, the CS survey members of their respective groups. This is partly conducted during cooking events in the community kitchen of Caritas Community Cooking.
Second Workshop (Summer 2026):
The results of the questionnaires are discussed with the involvement of relevant actors in the Vienna food system, such as trade and government, and strategies are developed. Based on this, information material tailored to the target groups is created and distributed.
Project Leadership and Team
The project is led by Prof. Susanne Waiblinger of the Vetmeduni Vienna, with Anna Rademann also involved in the project. From BOKU, Prof. Marianne Penker contributes her expertise to the project, and Dr. Christina Gugerell acts as the interface to the CS at the cooperation partner “Caritas neighbourhood work”. The project is further supported by Martin Gerstl from the Vienna Food Council and founding member of the cooperative 'Morgenrot,' as well as Dr. Christiane Grill from the Open Innovation in Science Centre of the Ludwig Boltzmann Society in Vienna and Dr. Elisabeth Unterfrauner from the Centre for Social Innovation.
Contact
For further information about the COwWEL project, please contact us using the details below:
Ao. Prof. Susanne Waiblinger
Tzt. Anna Rademann
Center for Animal Nutrition and Animal Welfare Sciences
The experience of positive emotions is essential for good well-being of farm animals. It may also have an economic impact by enhancing health and production via physiological responses. Gentle interactions (stroking and talking in a gentle voice) usually induce positive emotions in cattle but not under all circumstances. The overarching aim of the project was thus to elucidate which characteristics of gentle tactile and vocal interactions with humans improve or impair their positive perception by cattle and how they affect cattle physiology.
First, we compared the reactions of young cattle to stroking by a familiar person, either while the person was talking in a gentle voice directly to them or while a recording of the human talking was played, which might be relevant for standardization in future experiments. The behaviour did not differ substantially between the two conditions, but heart rate characteristics indicated a stronger relaxation effect after live talking. In addition, the variability in the data was not reduced consistently. Thus, using a playback stimulus is not advantageous in terms of standardization and, moreover, might be less effective in eliciting a positive perception of the interactions in the animal than talking directly to it.
We also compared different stroking styles: stroking the ventral neck, which has previously been identified as a generally preferred area, and stroking the entire head-neck area while reacting to the perceived momentary preference of the animal. The behaviour indicated that both ways of stroking were perceived as positive, but there were very few differences. This finding also reflects the methodological challenges of discriminating between different intensities of positive emotions.
We found effects of restraint during gentle vocal and tactile interactions with humans: If heifers with a good relationship with humans were free to move, they showed more behavioural signs of enjoyment than when they were stroked while restrained. Furthermore, their heart rate tended to decrease during free stroking. This is in line with the results of our experiment with cows that were fearful of humans: We found a small improvement of the animals’ relationship towards humans if they experienced gentle interactions during restraint, whereas the improvement was more distinct in cows that experienced the interactions while free to move.
Finally, we did not find changes in salivary oxytocin, immunoglobulin A (IgA) or cortisol concentrations in heifers after gentle interactions with humans, although the heart rate decreased over the course of the test in animals experiencing gentle interactions, in contrast to the two controls (presence and absence of person). Oxytocin and IgA have come into the focus of animal welfare research especially as potential indicators of positive affective states, but these results speak against their usefulness in this context.
Contact Stephanie Lürzel
Positive social interactions have received little scientific interest compared to aggression and other socio-negative behaviours. Positive social interactions can improve longevity, health and well-being. Nevertheless, the biological mechanisms through which this occurs remain surprisingly poorly understood. This project investigates how positive human-animal interactions benefit animal welfare.
We will achieve this aim by 1) Studying the type of behaviours that characterise positive interactions, 2) Identifying the specific roles of different neurotransmitters, and 3) Elucidating the effects of long-term positive interactions on the brain and the immune system of the animal.
These studies will be conducted with farm pigs, as they are highly social domesticated animals that are eager to interact with humans. To clarify the pathways through which positive human-animal interactions benefit animals, the project relies on a multi-disciplinary approach combining animal behaviour, physiology, proteomics, neuroscience and psychoneuroimmunology.