The Animal Consciousness Conferences (ACC) are a series of interdisciplinary meetings bringing together scientists and scholars interested in the scientific study of consciousness beyond the human mind.

The conferences are designed as small, intensive workshops that encourage deep discussion and collaboration across disciplines including behavioral biology, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and related fields.

Rather than functioning as traditional academic conferences, the ACC meetings emphasize extended dialogue, collaborative exploration of ideas, and the development of new approaches to the empirical study of consciousness.

Over time, these discussions have gradually contributed to the emergence of new conceptual frameworks and research directions in the comparative study of consciousness.

Background for Animal Consciousness
1–5 May 2023 | Dharamsala, India

The first Animal Consciousness Conference took place in Dharamsala, following discussions between scientists and His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the scientific and ethical implications of consciousness in the animal world.

The meeting brought together Buddhist scholars and researchers from several scientific disciplines to explore the foundations of animal consciousness and its distribution in nature. A central theme of the meeting was the need for a careful and scientifically grounded approach to questions about consciousness in animals. The discussions also emphasized the importance of developing experimental methods capable of investigating conscious processes beyond the human mind.

One full day of the conference was devoted to the ethical and policy implications of animal consciousness — in particular, to questions of animal protection and the alleviation of suffering in light of the growing scientific evidence for conscious processes across a wide range of species.

One of the ideas discussed during the conference was the need for a carefully considered declaration on animal consciousness. In 2024, the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness was published, with several participants of the Dharamsala Conference contributing to its development and among its initial signatories. The declaration calling for serious scientific consideration of the possibility of consciousness in a wide range of animal species has since been signed by hundreds of scientists and philosophers.

How to Study and Understand Non-Human Consciousness
4–9 May 2024 | Kathmandu, Nepal

The second ACC meeting focused on a key methodological question: how consciousness beyond the human mind can be studied scientifically.

Participants explored conceptual and experimental approaches to investigating conscious processes in animals and discussed possible criteria and tests for detecting consciousness across species.

One important outcome of the meeting was the development of the Kathmandu List of Consciousness Tests (C-Tests) — a proposed set of experimental paradigms aimed at investigating conscious processes in animals.

The meeting also brought together scientists working on biological and artificial forms of cognition, reflecting a broader interest in understanding consciousness across different kinds of cognitive systems.

An account of the Dharamsala Conference by Tim Bayne is available in Noema: Exploring the Boundaries of Consciousness

Natural Consciousness: Its Emergence, Comparative, Behavioral and Neural Biology
9–18 June 2025 | Galápagos Islands

The third ACC meeting expanded the discussion toward the comparative biology of consciousness.

The conference highlighted a naturalistic approach—tracing the evolutionary history of consciousness, mapping its distribution across species, exploring its adaptive functions, and examining the neural mechanisms that support it.

The meeting also continued the development of the C-Tests framework, evaluating proposed paradigms and discussing how they might be applied across different experimental systems.

With their unmistakably Darwinian flavor, these themes made the Galápagos Islands an especially inspiring setting for the meeting.

Comparative Neuroscience of Consciousness:
Insights into the Biological Basis of Subjective Experience
11–17 June 2026 | Qing Cheng Mountains, Chengdu, China

The fourth ACC meeting will focus on the comparative neuroscience of consciousness.

Building on the conceptual work of previous conferences, the meeting will explore how neural approaches can contribute to the comparative study of conscious processes across species.

Particular attention will be given to interactions between human and animal research, as well as to the comparative use of C-tests in both behavioral and neurobiological contexts.

The conference will also provide an opportunity to further develop the Comparative Consciousness Program, exploring possible research directions aimed at understanding the fundamental nature of consciousness through comparative investigation across different kinds of minds.

Taken together, the ACC meetings represent a developing effort to bring together researchers from multiple disciplines in order to advance the scientific study of consciousness beyond the human mind.

Through sustained dialogue and collaboration, the conference series has gradually contributed to the emergence of new conceptual tools — including the C-Tests framework — and has helped lay the foundations for the Comparative Consciousness Program.