Research And Data As Tools In Advocates’ Decision-Making
Background
While all animal advocacy organizations have clear mission statements, priorities, and tactics that guide both day-to-day activities and big-picture planning, groups vary in how they use data in their decision-making. There is a growing interest in the animal advocacy ecosystem across many focal areas in taking evidence-based actions and having a research foundation for statements and positions. However, some organizations hypothesize that research and data might not be seen as relevant or able to be integrated with these foundational commitments.
In the animal advocacy space, Faunalytics acts as a knowledge broker, committed to what’s known as knowledge translation: the process of moving research, data, evidence from original researchers and research outputs into formats and framings for a wide range of actors. That’s why Faunalytics commissioned this study about the use of research in animal advocacy. This isn’t a program evaluation: none of the interview questions mentioned Faunalytics, though several of the participants did in their answers.
The purpose of this study is to explore how animal advocacy organizations access, interpret, and use research, data, and other forms of evidence in their work. The research project included primary data collection through interviews and thematic analysis of the interview transcripts. Participants were 20 staff members of animal advocacy organizations around the world, all of which include farmed animals in their mandate.
Key Findings
- Research and evidence in animal advocacy can be categorized in terms of five purposes, which may inform how the research should be undertaken. First, being evidence-based helps organizations establish their legitimacy. Almost all organizations report that framing their positions, priorities, and tactics as evidence-based increases their external legitimacy with all types of individuals and institutions they seek to influence. Research and evidence also support internal decision-making on how to act on foundational priorities. Research processes and outputs can build partnerships and alliances across animal advocacy organizations and with other related movements. Evidence is often used to catalyze action by individuals and institutions, and in communication more generally around identifying problems and solutions to animal welfare and wellbeing challenges.
- Most organizations and audiences see peer-reviewed publications and the research behind them as the gold standard for rigor. Government and industry research is often seen as biased, but also the basis for the dominant systems and narratives and thus cannot be ignored. Animal advocacy organizations are well-positioned to identify research priorities, collect data related to internal strategies, and share evaluation evidence. However, when research is used for the first category, external legitimacy, it is best done by an academic or other institutional researcher not directly affiliated with a specific animal advocacy organization or effort.
- Research is not often used to set foundational priorities for existing organizations, but it is used to shift tactics and identify emerging issues or opportunities for advocacy. That is, organizations are “tactic flexible and cause inflexible.” While they are not reorienting their missions based on research, they use research and data at every other level—looking for information that supports existing positions, adjusting data points and messaging when new information emerges, and pivoting or reorienting their tactics in the face of new data. Research and knowledge translation that is oriented toward solutions or catalyzing action is useful for a wide range of audiences.
- Organizations need evidence syntheses that provide a ‘state of the state’ on specific topics, including agreement on key facts and figures when possible, as well as detailed annotated bibliographies, exhaustive literature reviews, or similar extensive summaries of the current state of the knowledge on general topics.
- The most foundational gaps in the evidence base are related to how to effect change, especially regarding under-researched species and geographies. More social science research and knowledge translation is needed on the impact and efficacy of behavioral nudges on one hand and social movement tactics on the other. Organizations also noted that gaps in the evidence base related to particular species, often those that are low economic value or not common in the Global North, and related to specific geographies, especially in the Global South.
- Challenges to using existing research include having the time and expertise to translate complexity and ambiguity in research findings into actionable information. More evidence is needed from evaluation and internal data collection about tactics that work AND tactics that do not work to achieve intended outcomes.
- Many organizations seek out research both actively and passively. Organizations access new information somewhat passively through extensive affinity networks, and intentionally through knowledge translation hubs and trusted individuals and organizations when seeking information for specific programming and communication purposes.
Recommendations
In general, the more collaboration and coordination within researchers and between researchers and advocates, the more we are able to address complex problems with relatively scarce resources and a diversity of tactics. However, specific recommendations vary based on your role in the knowledge translation process.
Funders Should...
- Prioritize investments in research gaps, especially related to needs and solutions in specific geographies and social science studies related to diverse tactics. There are research gaps especially for Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, especially related to production systems and cultural contexts very different from those in North America and Europe. For organizations working the Global South, the evidence base from the Global North is seen as legitimate but not always relevant to the production systems or social contexts.
- Support long-term studies to look at impact, not just outcomes. Investments in research on the efficacy of tactics to mobilize public support and policy change need to align with the long time horizons that are necessary to understand the short- and long-term impacts of various approaches to building the animal advocacy movement. Most of the gaps and challenges in the existing research and evidence base relate to questions of how to effect change, rather than what to change or why to act.
- Fund knowledge translation activities, including at the end of research and evaluation projects, and to support synthesis activities. Too many lessons learned are not communicated outside of the organizations directly focused on specific actions or research projects, and knowledge translation activities require time and capacity that many organizations don’t have unless built into funding opportunities. Similarly, funding for synthesis and interpretation of existing information is a form of knowledge translation that can help ensure that animal advocacy organizations are communicating and making decisions based upon the most up-to-date and complete evidence base possible.
Animal Advocacy Organizations Should...
- Share research plans and outputs to maximize learning and decrease redundancy. Because overall financial and human resources are scarce, animal advocacy organizations can maximize impact by sharing their plans for specific projects before getting started, to reduce redundancy, as well as their outcomes or findings at the end of projects, to support learning about what works and what doesn’t work to improve animal wellbeing and social support for animal advocacy. Few organizations wish they could do more research themselves.
- Expand coordination efforts by developing a shared meta-theory of change and research priorities within it. In addition to sharing before and after specific projects or actions, many animal advocacy organizations would welcome having a shared high-level vision for the goals that organizations share and the many possible impact pathways to achieve these goals. A shared theory of change could then help organizations communicate their research plans as well as identify gaps or areas of overlap for further collaboration.
- Build in time and resources for knowledge translation activities to support external coordination and internal decision-making. When possible, organizations should include time and financial resources to support knowledge translation activities, especially related to sharing results of evaluation studies and similar programmatic learning. Sharing learning and information gathered through advocacy or applied research processes is useful to enhance external coordination across animal advocacy organizations, and knowledge translation can also support internal learning and application of new information for decision-making.
Research Organizations Should...
- Continue to focus on knowledge translation activities that include summarizing research and synthesizing evidence. Animal advocacy organizations want access to a research and evidence base that is diverse and connects the dots about drivers of problems and possible solutions.
For example, recent and upcoming systematic reviews and meta-analyses are the gold standard for summary information about the current state of evidence on a topic. However, more casual synthesis of multiple studies can be helpful as well.
- Build and translate evidence on long-term tactics and approaches to effecting change. Social movements research can examine the efficacy of many different tactics happening at the same time in different places, rather than incrementally documenting short-term changes. This fuels the longevity of the movement.
For example, Animal Charity Evaluators creates Theory of Change visuals for their recommended charities that demonstrate diverse pathways for progress. Click through to the recommended charities’ comprehensive reviews to see them.
- Add details about quality and legitimacy to the information (metadata) associated with specific research products whenever possible. Most animal advocacy organizations use research and data in their work to increase their external legitimacy, and having a quick way to understand its quality and legitimacy based on things like source, funding, and level of transparency would help them make decisions about when and how to use different pieces of evidence.
For example, at Faunalytics we disclose sources in all of our original research and library summaries, disclose when we have received funding for a given project, and provide as much transparency about study materials and data as participant confidentiality allows.
- Provide guidance and frameworks to organizations to support diffusion of knowledge translation activities. Knowledge brokers, like Faunalytics and our peer organizations, should communicate research findings in ways most likely to result in their practical application.
For example, Impactful Animal Advocacy has a Slack research hub for advocates and researchers to share knowledge. Researchers can post their studies, answer questions about their findings, and give advice to advocates in real time, increasing the odds that the study will have an impact.
- Researchers and knowledge brokers should develop relationships with the intended users of the research early to increase the research’s effectiveness. Setting a shared research agenda among researchers and animal advocacy organizations or creating space for animal advocacy organizations to publicly identify their research needs would make the end results more actionable and would speed the knowledge translation process.
For example, Good Growth is implementing a Research-to-Action lab, where researchers give presentations to groups of advocates designed to give practical advice.
- Coordinate and collaborate with other researchers, including organizations and academics. Transparency around current research activities is crucial, and researchers should work together to set shared research agendas when possible and build or implement systems that can enable matchmaking between organizations and researchers.
For example, Vegan Thesis has recently launched a database of open research questions for undergraduate and graduate students to draw on in their work.
Factsheet
Applying These Findings
We understand that reports like this have a lot of information to consider and that acting on research can be challenging. Faunalytics is happy to offer pro bono support to advocates and nonprofit organizations who would like guidance applying these findings to their own work. Please visit our Office Hours or contact us for support.
In Our Work
This report presents Faunalytics with a rare opportunity to apply our research in our own work. We are excited to announce several changes for 2024 and beyond, which we are making to better reflect the needs of our audience as identified in this report. Upcoming initiatives include:
Accelerating Our Content
- Library Updates: We will publish one more library summary per week, increasing our overall output by 25%. Additionally, we plan to cover more paywalled journal articles and animal ag industry reports to improve the utility of the least accessible content.
- The Research of Advocacy blog series: This new blog series, starting next month, will provide an in-depth review of a single advocacy intervention (e.g. documentaries, protests, social media) in each issue, designed for easy implementation by advocates.
- Exploring Peer Review: A forthcoming three-part blog series will explore how peer-reviewed academic publishing functions and how animal advocates can engage with it.
- Research Advice Hub Revamp: We will soon refresh and expand our Research Advice section into a central hub for advocates to find answers to all their research-related questions. In addition to expanding the resources we provide ourselves, we will provide advocates with a roadmap to all that’s out there for conducting, commissioning, compiling, and understanding research.
Improving Our Research Strategy
- Shared Agenda-Setting: Beginning this year, we will investigate the various sources of research questions and agendas that are currently in use, identify ways to improve researchers’ communication and increase collaboration, and facilitate coordinated research efforts through working groups, resource hubs, and the like.
- Crowdsourced Monitoring and Evaluation: Starting later this year, we will pilot a project that confidentially sources M&E data from animal advocacy organizations. With this pilot, we will examine the feasibility of collecting enough workable data to draw more general conclusions about particular categories of intervention or campaign.
- Meta-Analyses: Starting with our next research prioritization cycle, we will be emphasizing more frequent literature review and meta-analyses to tackle big questions in the movement that can’t be answered by a single study.
- Study Purpose and Peer Review: We will categorize upcoming Faunalytics studies by research purpose, using this framework to determine when to pursue peer review and/or academic support to best achieve the goals of the research.
Expanding The Reach And Accessibility Of Faunalytics’ Original Research
- Visual Summaries: We will create social-media-friendly visual summaries of key report takeaways for select Faunalytics studies.
- Short-Form Videos: For every Faunalytics study, we will create a one-minute video explaining key takeaways to be shared on social media.
- Report Revamp: Our Faunalytics report template will soon be more visually appealing and engaging.
Behind The Project
Research Team
This project was conducted by Dr. Kristal Jones of JG Research and Evaluation. Dr. Jo Anderson (Faunalytics) contributed to the research design and reviewed the final report, but was not involved in data collection or analysis, to ensure that this study would provide an anonymous arms-length view of research in animal advocacy.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the advocates who participated in this research, providing valuable input about how to improve knowledge translation in animal advocacy. In addition, we are grateful to Greg Boese for the original suggestion for this research, and to Faunalytics’ donors for your support—your donations allow us to conduct essential research like this to help you take action for animals.
Research Terminology
We strive to make research accessible to everyone. We avoid jargon and technical terminology as much as possible in our reports. If you do encounter an unfamiliar term or phrase, check out the Faunalytics Glossary for user-friendly definitions and examples.
Research Ethics Statement
As with all of Faunalytics’ original research, this study was conducted according to the standards outlined in our Research Ethics and Data Handling Policy.
Let us know what you think!
We conduct research to help advocates like you, so we really value your input on what we’re doing well and how we can do better. Take the brief (less than 2min) survey below to let us know how satisfied you were with this report.
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Citations:
Jones, K. & Anderson, J. (2024). Research And Data As Tools In Advocates’ Decision-Making. Faunalytics. https://faunalytics.org/research-and-data-as-tools/
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