Part-time PhD: Improving animal welfare, efficiencies and red meat quality through control of olfactory stimulants in the abattoir and supply chain

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Research Office
Location:  Newport, Shropshire TF10 8NB
Post Type:  Part Time
Contract Type:
Fixed Term

– 60 Months
Closing Date: 
23.59 hours GMT on Monday 14 November 2022
Reference:  RD-PHD-01-KF-MH-R

Red meat species have an acute sense of smell, used to identify threats and recognise familiar environments or companions – eliciting either positive or negative behavioural responses. The red meat supply chain requires animals to experience novel environments and have contact with unfamiliar social groups. The olfactory stimulants in these environments can lead to negative behavioural responses, resulting in increased animal-human contact and use of coercion methods. Negative behavioural responses and increased animal-human contact impact animal welfare and can detrimentally affect meat quality.

Managing olfactory stimulants in the environment has the potential to minimise negative behavioural responses, improving welfare and meat quality. The aim of the study to identify olfactory stimulants (VOC) in the abattoir and supply chain environment which may be managed or manipulated to improve animal welfare, operational efficiency and meat quality outcome measures. The project will also quantify the VOC effects on outcome measures, with the purpose of establishing protocols for their management and dispersal practical mechanisms for dispersal of cattle and sheep in lairage and supply chain environments. The study will provide the wider industry with practical tools with the potential to improve animal welfare, customer confidence and financial return for businesses of all sizes and contribute to greater understanding of the role of scents in animal behaviour.

This position is ideally suited to someone working within the meat industry and resident within the UK. The studentship covers all tuition fees and project costs associated with a PhD but does not come with a stipend.

For informal enquiries please contact Dr Karim Farag  [email protected]  

Harper Adams University is one of the premier UK Higher Education institutions focused on the land-based and food supply chain sector. With around 2,800 undergraduate students, plus those completing postgraduate, research and CPD programmes, Harper Adams University is the UK’s largest single provider of higher education for these subjects.  Programmes fall into eleven broad subject areas – but none operate in isolation. Community and collaboration are key at Harper Adams, meaning everyone, including staff, students and industry partners, benefits from a close network of knowledge and opportunity exchange. Situated in Shropshire, the campus and the surrounding area provide an excellent working and living environment for staff and students alike.

Harper Adams is consistently positioned highly in a range of national ratings, performance measures and league tables. The University has been the highest performing modern university in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide for the last four years, climbing to 17th place in the overall league table. In the 2020 guide Harper Adams was named Modern University of the Year and runner-up University of the Year. In the 2019 Whatuni? Student Choice Awards, based on student reviews, Harper Adams won the Student Support category for the fifth time – the only university to have taken the title since the awards began – and won the category for best job prospects for a fourth year running. In the 2020 QS World Rankings for Agriculture and Forestry published in March 2020, Harper Adams was ranked first in the UK for academic reputation and second in the world for its reputation with employers.

Applied research is at the heart of the university’s activity, with the work of a thriving academic community underpinning both teaching and work with the industries allied to Harper. The 2014 Government Research Excellence Framework rated all of the university’s research as “of international quality”, and more than half was deemed “world leading” or “internationally excellent”.