Editorial

Abstract

When the Council of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare agreed to the publication of Animal Welfare, it noted that the enterprise had the potential to do much good in the animal welfare field and also to be a constant drain on the financial resources of the Federation. It decreed that after some three to five years a decision would have to be made as to the real value, to UFAW, of continuing to produce the Journal. This decision was to be based on a consideration of whether or not the Journal was practically viable - Was it producible? Did it satisfy a need? - and whether or not its production costs bore a realistic relationship to its earnings from paid subscriptions. The Journal will soon be entering its fourth publication year and the decision day therefore draws near. A strong case can be made that it is indeed producible - a look at the Contents list for this issue demonstrates that this is so. It fulfils a need: we have, for example, a whole queue of manuscripts on offer for publication and we have a modest but steady number of regular subscribers. Its long-term economic viability however, is still uncertain. It is expensive to produce and the academic and animal welfare communities have not, over the last few years, been sufficiently funded that they can readily subscribe to new journals. There is not, as yet, ‘a realistic relationship between its earnings from paid subscriptions and its production costs’. A solution to this financial imbalance has yet to be found.