Exciting news: we’ll be sharing our first findings on inventive agency in the wild!

We are delighted to share that the first results of the project’s initial research stage will be presented at two upcoming conferences this spring!

This initial stage explored the theoretical and empirical conditions for studying inventive agency in the wild. It asked what is needed to investigate animal inventiveness rigorously: conceptually, by clarifying what should count as invention and how it relates to agency; and empirically, by identifying the observational criteria and field data that make such a study possible.

Based on the long-term database of the Tsaobis Baboon Project, this work has provided a unique opportunity to trace, describe, and compare inventive behaviours in wild chacma baboons over time. It has also opened up a broader reflection on animal agency itself—not only as a matter of control or choice, but also as a capacity to develop new ways of engaging with the environment. In this respect, the project speaks both to the study of inventiveness and to wider questions about agency, welfare, and life in the wild.

We will be sharing these first results in two different academic events:

At the ISAE UK & Ireland Regional Conference 2026 (Nottingham) - 21 April 2026

At the LSE workshop “Common Ground on Animal Ethics: When Philosophy Meets Anthropology” (London) - 30 April–1 May 2026

These two events offer complementary opportunities to discuss the project’s early findings across disciplinary boundaries. One places the discussion in dialogue with animal welfare science, while the other brings it into conversation with philosophy and anthropology. Together, they reflect the broader ambition of the project: to develop a concept of animal agency that is both theoretically robust and empirically tractable.

We very much look forward to these conversations and to sharing further updates as the project develops.

Mathilde Tahar & Alecia Carter