It doesn’t feel particularly different from other academic conferences to me. Most researchers don’t reflect on what they think the most important research is and then go out and find the funding and institution to do exactly that. Instead, you usually apply to lots of PhD/postdoc positions that are vaguely in your field of expertise and you take what you get. Such positions often come with funding for some particular kind of work. I am not surprised that there is money in research on precision livestock farming, for example. I expect this is a bit different once you get tenure, but most research is done by early-career researchers (because there are so much more of them).
I assume the people there like animals a bit more than the average person. They probably chose their undergrad (veterinary science/biology/...) because of that. Then, at the end of their undergrad they would have chosen their final project from a limited list of possible projects offered by a limited number of labs (at a uni that they picked years previously for probably different reasons). And then, when they were applying to PhDs, they likely prioritised projects that were somewhat related to that undergrad project. Sadly, a lot of researchers stumble into their speciality like that.
(This is my personal impression of how academia works. I am not aware of any proper research on this.)
Even amongst academic conferences, this seems quite outside of my personal experience. I’ve been to a small number of academic animal law conferences and—while there is plenty to complain about from an EA perspective—most people were there because they cared about animals and the food was all vegan.
It doesn’t feel particularly different from other academic conferences to me. Most researchers don’t reflect on what they think the most important research is and then go out and find the funding and institution to do exactly that. Instead, you usually apply to lots of PhD/postdoc positions that are vaguely in your field of expertise and you take what you get. Such positions often come with funding for some particular kind of work. I am not surprised that there is money in research on precision livestock farming, for example. I expect this is a bit different once you get tenure, but most research is done by early-career researchers (because there are so much more of them).
I assume the people there like animals a bit more than the average person. They probably chose their undergrad (veterinary science/biology/...) because of that. Then, at the end of their undergrad they would have chosen their final project from a limited list of possible projects offered by a limited number of labs (at a uni that they picked years previously for probably different reasons). And then, when they were applying to PhDs, they likely prioritised projects that were somewhat related to that undergrad project. Sadly, a lot of researchers stumble into their speciality like that.
(This is my personal impression of how academia works. I am not aware of any proper research on this.)
Even amongst academic conferences, this seems quite outside of my personal experience. I’ve been to a small number of academic animal law conferences and—while there is plenty to complain about from an EA perspective—most people were there because they cared about animals and the food was all vegan.
Thanks for sharing your experience! Maybe this was unusual for animal related events.
My experience with academic conferences comes mostly from non-related computer science conferences.