Authorship

The Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock was initiated in October 2022 by the same six members of the Organizing Committee for the International Summit on The Societal Role of Meat held in Dublin and hosted by the Irish state agency for agriculture Teagasc on 19/20 October 2022.

The authorship for the Dublin Declaration lies with the entire group of 36 scientist co-authors who contributed to the scientific articles of the Animal Frontiers Special Edition published in April 2023 https://academic.oup.com/af/issue/13/2. In an engaged round robin email group effort in October 2022, the co-authors made numerous drafting suggestions and revisions for the wording of the Dublin Declaration, until a finally agreed text emerged. The co-authorship approved the suggestion that the last paragraph of the Declaration was taken over from a Solution Cluster document on Sustainable Livestock at the UN Food Systems Summit 2021.

Two of the six initiators (Declan Troy and Rod Polkinghorne) are also associated with the not-for-profit foundation International Meat Research Association 3G Foundation (IMR3G). IMR3G is a collaborative, independent, not-for-profit international eating quality research platform. It is linked to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Specialized Section on Meat, see here https://imr3g.org/about-foundation/. The foundation thankfully agreed to host the website for the Dublin Declaration, but has had no role in coordinating any related activities.

For the six members of the Organizing Committee summarily, it is declared that no financial funding or other material support has been received from any third-party source, whether private or public, to arrange, coordinate, co-author or publish the Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock. Individually, the six members (in alphabetical order) declare:

Ederer is a non-renumerated member of the Scientific Council of the World Farmers Organisation (WFO). The Scientific Council is by charter an independent body to the WFO. Ederer operates the Global Observatory on Accurate Livestock Sciences, GOALSciences in short (www.goalsciences.org), as part of the Global Food and Agribusiness Network, GFAN in short. GFAN is a professional research company owned by Ederer, which is registered in Switzerland. GFAN has been serving numerous public and private sector clients with executive teaching, advisory and research products. Clients are from across the entire food system, and also outside the food system.

Kaster is a meat scientist that serves as the CEO of the American Meat Science Association, a professional society of more than 2300 meat scientists representing major university research and teaching institutions as well as meat processing companies in the United States and internationally. AMSA strives to cultivate a global community of professionals and students to discover, apply and communicate meat science and technology. The views she expresses in relation to the Dublin Declaration are hers alone and do not necessarily reflect those of AMSA.

Koohmaraie is a non-renumerated member of the Board of Directors of the International Stockmen’s Educational Foundation (ISEF), adjunct faculty at Texas Tech University and serves as graduate student committee member for Virginia Tech University. The ISEF’s principal mission is education. All three organizations are non-profit organizations. The views he expressed in relation to Dublin Declaration are his own and does not necessarily reflect those of his current employer or the aforementioned organizations.

Leroy is a non-remunerated board member of three scientific societies, including the Belgian Association for Meat Science and Technology (president), the Belgian Society for Food Microbiology (president), and the Belgian Nutrition Society. The latter are non-profit organisations aiming at the dissemination of scientific information, while operating independently from the livestock industry. Still on a non-remunerated basis, he also serves on the Scientific Board of World Farmers' Organization (WFO) and the FAO/COAG Sub-Committee on Livestock. Leroy’s research funding is declared in his scientific publications, where relevant, and does largely originate from European, national, and university research funds. Except for travel cost reimbursements, he does not accept speaker fees, honoraria, or other personal income when disseminating his expertise to food industry groups or companies. The views he expresses in relation to the Dublin Declaration are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of all aforementioned organizations.

Polkinghorne is a non-renumerated member of the Council for the not-for-profit International Meat Research Foundation. He has worked with the Australian and global livestock and meat industries in a private capacity since 1971 developing and managing beef and dairy cattle breeding, feeding, product development and retailing businesses. From 1991 he has also actively managed extensive consumer sensory research across 11 countries. This research has resulted in industry systems that improve consumer sensory satisfaction by enabling accurate cooked meal prediction for individual beef portions through scientific evaluation of production factors and their interactions. This research has been funded by a number of government bodies, industry associations and commercial companies. Advise on commercial application of the research has been provided on both a paid and unpaid basis.