Animal Inventiveness Research Project
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animalinvention.bsky.social
Animal Inventiveness Research Project
@animalinvention.bsky.social
Our research explores how & why non-human animals invent new behaviours by studying their play.

The project is led by Mathilde Tahar & Alecia Carter.

We are by the Leverhulme Trust and hosted by UCL.

https://www.animalinventiveness.com
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This is the Bsky account of the Animal Inventiveness project led by @drmathildetahar.bsky.social & Alecia Carter ! The project is funded by @leverhulme.bsky.social and hosted by UCL.
We will share here our news&events, publications, and any useful materials !
Next session is tomorrow !
Come and join us to unveil the mystery of animal agency (or just try to make sense of the concept actually…)! Daria Zakharova will be presenting!
Seminar Agency between Biology and Philosophy 2025/2026
Here, you will find the 2025-2026 programme, and general information about our seminar. The introductory post can be found here.ProgrammeThis year, we will meet each second Wednesday of each month, fr...
www.animalinventiveness.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Our seminar on animal agency, between biology and philosophy, is back !
Check out the programme for the next sessions here !
We meet on the second Wednesday of each month, on Zoom, from 4 to 5 PM (UK time).
You’re very welcome to join ! :)

www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...
Seminar Agency between Biology and Philosophy 2025/2026
Here, you will find the 2025-2026 programme, and general information about our seminar. The introductory post can be found here.ProgrammeThis year, we will meet each second Wednesday of each month, fr...
www.animalinventiveness.com
November 2, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Great paper on the degrees and the levels of innovativeness, contributing to the ongoing debate on how to measure and compare innovations & the tendency to innovate. (Note: to be distinguished from the propensity to invent = produce a novel behaviour, which we are studying in chacma baboons).
🚨What is behavioral innovativeness? And how can we make sense of claims that individuals or taxa are 'more innovative' than others? In their new EJPS paper, Grant Ramsey & @andrameneganzin.bsky.social defend a novel, multidimensional & multilevel account of innovativeness.👇

#philsci #HPbio #evobio
July 9, 2025 at 6:36 AM
In April, our very own Mathilde Tahar discussed animal consciousness in Paris with Florian Moullard. And it is now a podcast!
(Available in French though… for now?)
Notre discussion avec @fmoullard.bsky.social sur la conscience animale, guidée par Fabien Trécourt, est désormais disponible en podcast!
On y a parlé du jeu des poulpes🐙, des collaborations entre loups et corbeaux🐺 🐦‍⬛et de ce que ça fait d'être une chauve-souris 🦇!
smartlink.ausha.co/soirees-phil...
Éthologie : Dans la tête des animaux
Pouvons-nous penser comme la chauve-souris, jouer comme le poulpe ou encore collaborer comme le corbeau avec le loup ? Tous ces animaux perçoivent-ils et ont-ils conscience d’eux mêmes comme nous l’en...
smartlink.ausha.co
June 27, 2025 at 10:15 AM
The next session of our seminar will take place next Thursday! We will be discussing the possibility of connecting (or not) the different concepts of biological agency.
Mathilde Tahar will be leading the session!
You're welcome to join us through Zoom!
www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...
June 10, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Next Wednesday !!!
April 5, 2025 at 7:59 AM
A new piece by @drmathildetahar.bsky.social just got out on @aeon.co!! It explores the link between inventiveness and play in nonhuman animals. It is written with a sincere desire to convey what science and philosophy can teach us about this fascinating topic.
We hope you enjoy reading it!
Animal play can seem trivial, even laughable, and such scenes make us grin with delight. But is that all there is to it? buff.ly/yQcVjNj
March 28, 2025 at 12:47 PM
@drmathildetahar.bsky.social will speak about animal’s cognition and imagination with Florian Moullard.
9th April in Paris !

ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr/evenements/s...
Les soirées Philosophie, sciences et société à la Sorbonne | IHPST
ihpst.pantheonsorbonne.fr
March 18, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Next session of our online seminar on Agency between Biology and Philosophy is today (5pm UK time).

We will talk about the link between organism and agency + biosemiotics !!
Feel free to join us 😃

More info here:

www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...
Seminar Agency between Biology and Philosophy. Organisation and schedule
Here, you will find the programme of the upcoming sessions, and general information about our seminar. The introductory post can be found here.Next SessionsThe seminar series will continue on the seco...
www.animalinventiveness.com
March 13, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Our seminar on agency between biology and philosophy is still on, and we have amazing discussions.

It is on the second Thursday of each month, from 5pm to 6pm (UK time). Feel free to join :)

More info here : www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...
February 13, 2025 at 6:25 PM
There are many links between play and love/tenderness. The way the two intertwine when it comes to the co-invention of shared behaviours and signals between members of different species is one subject we aim to explore…
January 31, 2025 at 10:22 AM
New draft available on our website. Your feedback is most welcome — feel free to contact @drmathildetahar.bsky.social with any comments!

www.animalinventiveness.com/preprints-pu...
January 24, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Animal Inventiveness Research Project
Hey ! I have a new paper I'm willing to submit. I am still working on it. But I'd be happy to have some feedback before the final version ! I think it needs it…
It's about biological agency! Please share your comments :)

Here is the preprint:
dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG....
(PDF) "Individual playful memory": making sense of biological agency
PDF | In recent decades, agency has become a prominent concept for conceiving of biological phenomena, both in philosophy and in biology. The concept... | Find, read and cite all the research you need...
dx.doi.org
January 24, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Next session is this Thursday !!!
If you want to learn more about our seminar’s first session (and the next ones !!!), you can find everything here!
We had the first session of our seminar last week!

Here is a report + some information about the next sessions: www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...
January 7, 2025 at 5:25 PM
If you want to learn more about our seminar’s first session (and the next ones !!!), you can find everything here!
We had the first session of our seminar last week!

Here is a report + some information about the next sessions: www.animalinventiveness.com/post/seminar...
December 18, 2024 at 8:51 PM
And a cool seminar cross disciplinary seminar we just launched this month:

www.animalinventiveness.com/howtheresear...
December 18, 2024 at 7:37 PM
This is the Bsky account of the Animal Inventiveness project led by @drmathildetahar.bsky.social & Alecia Carter ! The project is funded by @leverhulme.bsky.social and hosted by UCL.
We will share here our news&events, publications, and any useful materials !
December 18, 2024 at 7:32 PM