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Additional file 2. Sub-groups for each stakeholder group that participated in semi-structured interviews.

Additional file 1. Interview questions for each stakeholder group.

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased our attention to the air. When the crisis begun public health leaders did not begin with thinking about the air, as suggested to the geography discipline by aerographers Jackson and Fannin (2011). Instead they begun with raising anxieties about what we touched – advising an increase in hand-washing in Feb 2020. Indeed, that is where we had begun in developing our expertise and interest in infection prevention and microbial aesthetics, and this still seemed valuable as we put our research proposal together in July 2020 for the Covid-19 emergency call. However, it became quickly apparent that the science was suggesting we had reasons to be anxious about the air we breathed, the air could be infectious, and to manage Covid infection required air management.

This report is provided for stakeholders involved in the provision and management of public transport services where there is a risk of community transmission of COVID-19 and other infections such as seasonal colds, flu, and noroviruses. It provides analysis of everyday bus user experiences within the changing conditions of the COVID-19 public health crisis, March 2020 onwards. Central to our thinking is the concept of ‘microbial landscapes’. This is a new term we are introducing to help describe and explain what is going on all around us, but in particular, on the bus. Microbial landscapes describes the intertwining BETWEEN the various ways different bus passengers visualise and sense the bus environment, AND the physical, material elements like other passenger bodies, bus architecture, viral particles and microbes. These microbial landscapes are dynamic across the temporalities of day, different seasons, different passengers, and the local dominance of evolving viral strains (alpha, delta, omicron of COVID-19 virus) and cleaning regimes, hand-sanitising, mask-wearing, and windows opening.

We are in a moment of profound environmental change, which presents challenges at local (water and food security), regional (land security) and global scales (climate change). Rural parts of Kenya have undergone substantial changes in recent years. Water resources and communities are under pressure from agriculture, industry and land management challenges like conservation, deforestation and soil degradation. Institution-led development and environmental efforts - whether addressing food security, nutrition, conservation or climate change adaptation - can sometimes compete or run counter to each other.With funding from the University of Southampton and a partnership with the Technical University of Kenya, an interdisciplinary research team came together to think about these institution-led (elite) development efforts and how they interact with the realities of (non-elite) communities in areas like Olderkesi in Narok County, Kenya. This short project will enable us to scope for a larger proposal next year that will bring together different partners and stakeholders. The team is made up of Dr. Emma Roe, Dr. Luke Olang’, Dr. Francis Oloo, Dr. Paul Hurley and Sospeter Wekesa, who bring together experience and knowledge across university and non-university settings.The team undertook two days of visiting communities and projects in the Olderkesi area, and held a workshop in Narok town with stakeholders from communities, government and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). We say ‘environmentalisms’ in the plural because it isn’t one single thing, and we wanted to find out what ‘non-elite environmentalisms’ might be in this local context. They might be what communities are doing for themselves, from traditional indigenous ways of living or from newer innovations responding to environmental and social change. They might be things that people are doing within their own family or what they are doing as a wider community.

The biomedical industry relies on the skills of animal technologists (ATs) to put laboratory animal welfare into practice. This is the first study to explore how this is achieved in relation to their participation in implementing refinement and reduction, two of the three key guiding ethical principles--the "3Rs"--of what is deemed to be humane animal experimentation. The interpretative approach contributes to emerging work within the social sciences and humanities exploring care and ethics in practice. Based on qualitative analysis of participant observation within animal research facilities in UK universities, in-depth interviews with ATs, facility managers, and other stakeholders, and analysis of regulatory guidelines, we draw a contrast between the minimum required of ATs by law and how their care work not only meets but often exceeds these requirements. We outline how ATs constitute a key source of innovation and insight into the refinement of animal care and the reduction of animal use, hitherto not formally acknowledged. Exploring AT care work as an example of ethics in practice makes an original contribution to broader debates within health care and animal welfare about how technology, regulation, and behavior can foster and sustain a "culture of care".

In-depth interviews with veterinarians and farmers exploring on-farm change suggest enactment of veterinary advice requires more than accuracy of advisory content. A relational context of trust, shared veterinarian-farmer understanding and meaningful interpretation of advice at a local (farmer) level is critical to promote a culture of change. Veterinarians concerned about advisory engagement should focus on eliciting and integrating farmer priorities, motivations and goals. This collaborative communication can encourage selection of appropriate, efficacious and timely veterinary expertise, leading to better integration and adoption of advice on farm.

Posthumanism has challenged the social sciences and humanities to rethink anthopocentricism within the cultures and societies they study and to take account of more-than-human agencies and perspectives. This poses key methodological challenges, including a tendency for animal geographies to focus very much on the human side of human–animal relations and to fail to acknowledge animals as embodied, lively, articulate political subjects. In this paper, we draw on recent ethnographic work, observing and participating in the care of research animals and interviewing the animal technologists, to contribute to the understandings of life within the animal house. In so doing, the paper makes three key arguments. Firstly, that studying how animal technologists perform everyday care and make sense of their relationships with animals offers useful insights into the specific skills, expertise and relationships required in order to study human–animal relations. Secondly, that animal technologists are keenly aware of the contested moralities which emerge in animal research environments and can offer an important position from which to understand this. Thirdly, that storytelling (exemplified by the stories told by animal technologists) is a useful resource for animal geographers to engage with complexity in human–animal relations.

This report provides the key findings and recommendations of a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Cross Council Initiative on ‘Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)’. Our project is a Pump Priming study funded as part of Theme 4: ‘Tackling AMR beyond the Healthcare Setting’. The aim of the project is to address the responsibility of retailers in tackling the AMR challenge in the context of their chicken and pork supply chains, and to investigate this evolving role and how it might be shaped in the future, both in the UK and also extending to the global scale. This research is significant in light of the O’Neill (2016) report on Tackling Drug-Resistant Infections Globally, the Government Response to the Review of Antimicrobial Resistance (HM Government, 2016) and subsequent roles played by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in taking forward their recommendations regarding the setting of targets for the reduction of antibiotic use, support for antimicrobial stewardship in the food system and the development of codes and standards for addressing AMR in the food system at both national and global levels. The O’Neill Report (2016: 29) calls for “producers, retailers and regulators to agree standards for ‘responsible use’. These standards could then be developed and implemented as an internationally recognised label, or used by existing certification bodies.”

The biomedical industry relies on the skills of Animal Technologists(ATs) to put laboratory animal welfare into practice. This is the first study to explore how this is achieved in relation to their participation in implementing refinement and reduction, two of the three key guiding ethical principles––the “3Rs”––of what is deemed to be humane animal experimentation. The interpretative approach contributes to emerging work within the social sciences and humanities exploring care and ethics in practice. Based on qualitative analysis of participant observation within animal research facilities in UK universities, in-depth interviews with Animal Technologists, facility managers and other stakeholders, and analysis of regulatory guidelines, we draw a contrast between the minimum required of ATs by law and how their care work not only meets, but often exceeds these requirements. We outline how ATs constitute a key source of innovation and insight into the refinement of animal care and the reduction of animal use, hitherto not formally acknowledged. Exploring AT care work as an example of ethics in practice makes an original contribution to broader debates within healthcare and animal welfare about how technology, regulation and behavior can foster and sustain a culture of care.

RESEARCH HERITAGEProtein Pressures was a research collaboration between environmental charity Hubbub Foundation UK, and Dr Emma Roe BA Human Geography Programme Leader, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences (FSHS), University of Southampton. Delivery was co-ordinated with performance artist Dr Paul Hurley.AIMSThere is an overwhelming body of evidence that points to the need to diversify our protein consumption for future global food security. Protein Pressures sought to discover effective ways to talk about the culturally sensitive subject of meat consumption through an exploration of the public's understanding of and attitudes towards different sources of protein. The project continued the development of the 'becoming-ecological citizen approach' created in Foodscapes in 2013 and 2014 by social geographer Dr Emma Roe and Dr Michael Buser.

Improving laboratory animal science and welfare requires both new scientific research and insights from research in the humanities and social sciences. Whilst scientific research provides evidence to replace, reduce and refine procedures involving laboratory animals (the ‘3Rs’), work in the humanities and social sciences can help understand the social, economic and cultural processes that enhance or impede humane ways of knowing and working with laboratory animals. However, communication across these disciplinary perspectives is currently limited, and they design research programmes, generate results, engage users, and seek to influence policy in different ways. To facilitate dialogue and future research at this interface, we convened an interdisciplinary group of 45 life scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, non-governmental organisations and policy-makers to generate a collaborative research agenda. This drew on methods employed by other agenda-setting exercises in science policy, using a collaborative and deliberative approach for the identification of research priorities. Participants were recruited from across the community, invited to submit research questions and vote on their priorities. They then met at an interactive workshop in the UK, discussed all 136 questions submitted, and collectively defined the 30 most important issues for the group. The output is a collaborative future agenda for research in the humanities and social sciences on laboratory animal science and welfare. The questions indicate a demand for new research in the humanities and social sciences to inform emerging discussions and priorities on the governance and practice of laboratory animal research, including on issues around: international harmonisation, openness and public engagement, ‘cultures of care’, harm-benefit analysis and the future of the 3Rs. The process outlined below underlines the value of interdisciplinary exchange for improving communication across different research cultures and identifies ways of enhancing the effectiveness of future research at the interface between the humanities, social sciences, science and science policy.

Objectives:Mastitis is one of the most significant causes of morbidity and mortality of the adult dairy cow (Ruegg 2011). Compliance with veterinary recommendations is critical to tackle incidence rates on farm (Green et al. 2007), yet improving uptake of advice in daily practice is a challenge (Jansen et al. 2010). Similar challenges are faced by the medical profession, who are increasingly employing an evidence-based communication methodology called Motivational Interviewing (MI) to improve public health. This research examines vet-farmer communication on disease, with the objective of establishing whether MI communication skills are currently in use.Materials and Methods:Role play sessions reflecting consultations on lameness and mastitis were recorded between cattle veterinarians (n=15) recruited from two UK practices located in South West England and an actress experienced in role play in medical and veterinary education. The actress was provided with a character and farm profile reflecting a ‘typical’ UK situation, and veterinarians were provided with a short excerpt on the disease issue/risk factors on the farm and evidence to encourage them to broach a broad topic area of change with the farmer. Consultations lasted an average of 11.2 minutes (range 7.7 to 14.9).Consultations were analysed using the MITI 4.2.1, a treatment integrity measure for clinical trials of MI. In this system, verbal interactions are firstly coded for frequencies of verbal behaviours: Giving Information, Persuading, Persuading with Permission, Questions, Reflections (simple/complex), Affirmations, Seeking Collaboration, Emphasising Autonomy and Confronting. Secondly, global scores are assigned on a five point Likert scale (from 1: low proficiency to 5: high proficiency) to characterise the entire consultation in relation to MI foci: Cultivating Change Talk, Softening Sustain Talk, Partnership and Empathy. To meet the level of ‘basic competency’ in MI, veterinarians required a mean score of 3.5 in Relational globals (Partnership, Empathy) and 3 in Technical globals (Cultivating Change Talk, Softening Sustain Talk), a Reflection to Question ratio of 1:1 and a 40% Complex Reflection percentage (of total Reflections). Coding was performed directly from audiotapes.Results: MI communication skills were recorded within these veterinary consultations, yet no veterinarian was classified at a level of overall ‘basic competency’. Verbal behaviours:Veterinarians predominantly relied on Persuasion, Questions and Giving Information in their consultation approaches. Communication behaviours inadherent with MI (Persuasion and Confrontation, n=126) far exceed total MI adherent behaviours (Affirmations, Seeking Collaboration and Emphasising Autonomy, n=15), whilst no veterinarian achieved ‘basic competency’ with regards to Question: Reflection ratio (goal: 1:2). However, Reflections were found in nine of the fifteen veterinarian-farmer interactions. Consultations approach: global scores:One veterinarian of the fifteen met the criteria for basic competence in MI with a mean score of 3.5 in Relational globals (Partnership, Empathy) and a mean score of 3 in Technical globals (Cultivating Change Talk, Softening Sustain Talk). However, mean global scores overall were low - Relational score = 1.6 (range 1-3.5) and Technical score = 1.7 (range 1- 3). Conclusions:These data suggest that current veterinary communication practices do not employ MI methods overall. However, some MI skill naturally occurs in practicing cattle veterinarians, indicating the feasibility of this methodology’s utilisation within this context. Further training in this methodology could enhance the advisory process for both veterinarians and farmers, thereby improving the uptake of advice and reducing the incidence of mastitis rates, amongst other management challenges, on UK dairy farms.