Student advocates like you are the future of the animal protection movement — so it’s critical for you to ground your advocacy in research and science. In this brief Faunalytics guide, we highlight the studies, reports, and evidence-based blogs that we think can help university students the most. We focus on strengthening your overall advocacy, launching campaigns on campus, spreading a vegan message, and staying up-to-date on research. While much of this research is specific to the U.S., many of the lessons can be applied to other contexts.

Strengthening Your Overall Advocacy

To understand how effective different advocacy tactics are, read this report. Our two studies examined over 15 different interventions (from social media posts to celebrity endorsements to protests) and saw how they could influence diet change. This landmark report is critical for anyone thinking about how the movement affects non-vegans. The findings are so vast that it’s impossible to summarize them in one paragraph — a must-read.

To understand the state of the movement on-campus, read this report. Only 16% of the top 100 U.S. colleges have an active animal advocacy group. Not only does this report demonstrate the need for more student groups, but it gives specific examples of campus activist groups that animal advocates can learn from. This report is another must-read for student advocates.

To help you recruit other students into advocacy, review this study. It explores the origins of advocates and finds that farmed animal advocates are most likely to have joined because of the media (37%) or interpersonal experiences, such as talking to a friend (19%). Reading this data can help you think about how to encourage others to join the movement on-campus.

To understand the importance of pragmatism in vegan advocacy, read this blog. Tobias Leenaert explains that idealism, while well-intentioned, may not be able to bring about effective change as compared to pragmatism, which involves dealing with a problem in a manner that suits the conditions that actually exist.

To understand how people become vegan, review this series of studies: This one explores the many paths that people take in reducing their meat intake (such as gradually, being vegetarian first, or “cold turkey”), this one looks at new vegans’ motivations and influences, and this one examines the barriers on the path to veganism.

To help you identify and mitigate burnout (either in yourself or others), read this evidence-backed blog. Burnout is common in the non-profit and social justice spheres, and preventing it requires both systemic and individual attention and care. Also, check out this blog for more ideas about burnout prevention.

Launching Campaigns On Campus

To understand how plant-based defaults work, review this post. Plant-based defaults (in which meat is still offered, but not as the default option) are a very effective way to reduce the amount of meat consumed in a dining hall or campus cafe, and are often driven by college students. This resource, which summarizes all the available research on defaults, is the first place to start if you want to use this advocacy tactic. It also includes data on behavioral nudges like menu labeling and menu ratios.

To examine university meat reduction campaigns specifically, check out this study. It looked specifically at university campaigns and found that “bimodal” campaigns (ones that combined both indirect methods, like nudges, and conscious promotion) were found to be the most effective. In other words, if you want to nudge students in a cafeteria setting, it’s best to also include promotional messaging to get your point across.

To learn how to improve a meat reduction campaign, check out this study. In short, using multiple intervention methods to support the meat reduction campaign, especially through the community, increases the odds of a Meatless Monday or similar campaign working long-term.

To learn how sanctuaries can help with diet change, use this Faunalytics original study. We found that non-vegans who toured a sanctuary reduced the amount of animal products they consumed, even months after the tour was complete. This indicates that your college group can likely use sanctuary tours as an effective intervention for meat reduction! As a bonus, you get to meet all the cute animals. (Check out our compilation of sanctuary-related research here).

To learn about the role of protest and other forms of street activism, check out this guide. In this resource, we summarize the research on street activism — covering everything from protest to leafleting to video outreach — and explain how advocates can do this better. This is a must-read for anyone looking to organize a grassroots demonstration. To learn if your university is testing on animals, you can search your state in this USDA tool.

To learn about how documentary screenings can help with diet change, read this study. In short, the study found that Cowspiracy was able to change attitudes and knowledge about meat consumption. Another study on the same film also found that participants increased their knowledge, but didn’t reduce their meat consumption, as compared to a control group. This suggests that documentaries may be best paired with other interventions to affect diet change.

To ally yourself with climate groups, read this study. Collaboration between climate and animal groups is a critical step forward to bring about diet change, and this study explores all the ways that climate groups are open to working with animal groups. The findings are rather optimistic!

To better understand your fellow classmates’ opinions of animals and the environment, read this analysis of Gen Z. In the U.S., Gen Z doesn’t believe that society is doing enough to protect the environment or animals — the study explores many of their proposed solutions, including education, regulations, and individual action. It also found that the reason younger people don’t get involved in activism is usually about practical barriers (like time, money, or connections), not emotional or ideological barriers. Keep this in mind when networking with your peers.

Spreading A Vegan Message

To brush up on your understanding of vegan messaging, we have a range of studies:

• This one on meat reduction messaging
• This write-up on animal cruelty messaging
• This analysis of “reduction” vs. “elimination” messages
• This Pax Fauna research about narrative framing in the vegan movement, among others
• This meta-analysis on meat reduction interventions
• This study on appeals to animal welfare

While exploring these resources, it’s important to remember that there is no single perfect vegan message that resonates with everybody. This means you should make sure to combine different messages together for non-vegan audiences depending on what their leverage point may be (climate, heath, welfare, and social justice) while also balancing positive and negative information. For example, don’t just explain the horrors of factory farming — also discuss the benefits of veganism and the animal movement. Importantly, since messaging is so complicated, there is no single study that will tell you all you need to know. Make sure to read multiple studies, stay up-to-date on new research, and talk to scientists (like us!) to learn more.

To tailor your message to different demographic groups, use this demographic breakdown which tracks how different groups are more likely to take certain pro-animal actions. For example, we can see students are more likely than non-students to vote for a pro-animal politician, but roughly equal to non-students in buying cruelty-free cosmetics. Use this tool to change your “ask” based on who you’re talking to on campus.

To understand how to use social media better as an advocate, check out our first Tactics In Practice resource. In it, we go over the science of social media advocacy and give seven research-backed, easy-to-implement tips on how to improve your social media outreach.

To increase the power of your persuasion, read this factsheet about social norms (informal “rules” about what is and isn’t acceptable). For example, instead of saying “there are a lot of vegan options in supermarkets these days,” say “every year, more and more vegan alternatives are arriving in stores.” The second is a dynamic norm, which is more likely to get people to adopt minority behaviors (like many pro-animal actions). Also, make sure you identify the audience you’re speaking to and speak to where they’re from. For example, “most humans can thrive on a vegan/plant-based diet” is fine, but “lots of people in [university] are vegan these days!” is much better because you identify the specific audience you’re talking to.

Staying Up-To-Date With Research

To find charts and graphs that can convince others about the importance of meat reduction based on ethics and sustainability, check out this list of resources:

• Faunalytics’ Fundamentals: This series of detailed infographics explores the basics of all types of animals, from farmed to companion to wild animals. They can be used to convey the extent of the harms of animal-use systems to non-vegans.
• Our World in Data’s Animal Welfare and Meat Production graphs: These charts help explain welfare concerns and sustainability impacts of modern animal farming, respectively.
• Plant Based Data: This library is full of studies that provide evidence for the benefits of a plant-based food system, exploring the problems of zoonoses, greenhouse gas emissions, land use, public health, economics, and more.

To find studies on the efficacy of interventions, check out Rethink Priorities’ Library of Interventions for Meat Elimination, a living database of research on intervention techniques.

To find more research, use the Faunalytics research library, the largest collection of studies for animal advocates, all explained clearly for everyone to understand. We also recommend the ACE Research Newsletter — a monthly research report to keep reviewing the latest studies!

If you get stuck with a research question, come to Faunalytics’ office hours, a free, virtual service for advocates to help you with research questions.

If you want to benefit animal lives via your university career, check out Vegan Thesis, an organization that helps undergraduate and graduate students write a thesis to benefit the movement.

If you want to create a study to improve your campaigns, review our Research Advice section.

Finally, thanks for all the work you do for animals!