The Importance of Robust Research to Support Welfare: The COMPASS Guidelines
How we use and care for animals, including horses, is under scrutiny, both within the animal-related industries and from the public. This has led to an increase in research related to animal husbandry and behaviour-modification techniques to identify animal care and training methods that meet evolving welfare guidelines and expectations. However, for research to be scientifically credible and usable by industry experts, recreational riders and caregivers alike, the research that influences perceptions and procedures must be robust, repeatable, ethical and have practical application.
Why COMPASS Was Created and What It Changes for Equine Behaviour Research
The existing 2017 PREPARE (Planning Research and Experimental Procedures on Animals: Recommendations for Excellence) guidelines and the 2020 ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines provide the basis for all animal-based research studies. The 2026 COMPASS guidelines have been designed to focus on behaviour-modification research that alters animal behaviour through training, handling or restraint.
COMPASS stands for: Controls and Calibration, Objectivity and Open data, Motivation and Methods, Precautions and Protocols, Animal-centred Assessment, Study ethics and Standards, Species relevance and Scientific rigour. The guidelines have been created by a team of industry experts and seek to provide explicit criteria for the study design, data collection and welfare assessment for behaviour-modification studies to ensure integrity, repeatability and applicability.
COMPASS strives to educate researchers to consider how study subjects are selected, monitored and assessed; what the risks and benefits are to the research conducted by the choice of animals, the equipment used, the control of the experiment; welfare priority, conflicts of interest, considering the effect of individual variation and the credibility of the data gathered and processed. There is specific guidance depending on the type of study carried out, the aims of the research, the risks, alternatives, obtaining consent and knowing when to stop an intervention to protect the welfare of the animal.
Following the detailed framework defined, of which only a small part has been outlined here, and supporting its evolution as knowledge and application of the framework increases, should provide researchers the ability to conduct rigorous, ethical, welfare-focused research that provides knowledge around care, handling and training that can benefit both animals and the people who work with and care for them.
The International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) has both supported the construction of the COMPASS guidelines through key member participation and welcomed the published framework. ISES highlight the specific welfare challenges that behaviour-modification research presents, especially around interpretation and replication under real-world conditions, and the species-specific challenges that horses can present due to commonly being trained to perform despite discomfort, stress or conflict, which presents both a welfare challenge but also influences the correct detection of impacts and their severity. The clear, practical guidelines ISES hope will provide help for people across the roles of equine-related research, including not only the researchers themselves, but animal ethics committees, journal editors and reviewers, as well as, of course, the horse.
Sources:
ISES. (2026). PRESS RELEASE: New COMPASS Guidelines strengthen welfare standards in equine behaviour research. [online]. Available from: https://www.equitationscience.com/compass-guidelines [Accessed 30 January 2026].
McGreevy, P.D., Mellor, D.J., Freire, R., Fenner, K., Merkies, K., Warren-Smith, A., Uldahl, M., Starling, M., Lykins, A., McLean, A., Doherty, O., Bradshaw-Wiley, E., Quinn, R., Wilkins, C.L., Christensen, J.W., Jones, B., Ashton, L., Padalino, B., O’ Brien, C., Copelin, C., Brady, C. and Henshall, C. (2026). COMPASS Guidelines for Conducting Welfare-Focused Research into Behaviour Modification of Animals. Animals (Basel) [online]. 16 (2), pp.206. Available from doi: 10.3390/ani16020206 [Accessed 16 January 2026].
