“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” — Albert Einstein
When you have big ideas that can make a difference in the lives of the animals and people you care about, don’t let the small details stand in your way of making your dreams a reality. Our team at AkoVet has been navigating the New Zealand veterinary research, education, and regulatory landscape for over a decade and we’re passionate about helping enthusiastic individuals and organisations plan out their own journey towards making a meaningful impact. Whether you’re looking for someone to run an entire research project or training programme from start to finish or you just need some support getting things set-up to run yourself, we’re here to provide the expertise and guidance you need.
*** Note: If your project exceeds our current capacity or scope, then we’ll do our best to connect you with collaborators who may be able to help. We do not currently provide support for molecular epidemiology studies, laboratory-based research, or clinical research trials evaluating pharmaceuticals, diagnostic tests, or surgical procedures.
Wherever you are on your research journey, we can offer a wide range of support tailored to your specific needs. Our team is experienced with both Quantitative methods (cross-sectional surveys, observational studies, simulation modelling, economic analysis) and Qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups, thematic analysis, case studies) that can be applied to many different species and systems.
We place a strong emphasis on working with you to clearly define the problem you’re looking to solve and then designing a robust research roadmap that will achieve your objectives while aligning with your budget, resources, and timelines.
We can also provide research mentorship to support individuals within your organisation in developing the skills and confidence to become independent researchers, enabling them to take on more complex projects.
After identifying the key knowledge gaps or priority research areas in your field of interest, we can assist you in reviewing the literature and refining your ideas into a Research Rationale. This will clearly define the problem you aim to solve and outline the specific Research Questions and Objectives you intend to address in your project.
Once your Research Questions and Objectives are locked down, we can help you develop a viable Project Plan detailing the necessary resources, timelines, milestones, and budget to keep your research on track. This includes:
If you don’t already have funding allocated for your project, we can help you identify both domestic and international funding opportunities for your completed Project Plan, as well as help prepare or review proposals for submission.
If you need help with project management to deliver on the objectives and milestones from your Project Plan, we can support you with:
After the data has been collected, we can help you with cleaning, analysing, and summarising key findings using appropriate statistical techniques. We prefer to work with data from research projects that we have designed ourselves, as this helps minimise potential issues with methodology and ensures a smoother analysis process. If you already have existing data that you would like us to analyse, we will first need to review your study design and data to ensure there are no fundamental flaws before we agree to take on the work.
When you’re ready to share your research results with the world, we can help you create a plan tailored to different audiences—the academic community, the general public, or key stakeholders. The work we do includes preparing or reviewing:
Get in touch to set up a meeting with us to talk through your project requirements.
Teaching is one of the most powerful tools we have for sharing knowledge that empowers individuals to learn, grow, and create meaningful change in their daily lives. Our approach to designing learning activities is firmly rooted in competency-based education — a framework that emphasises how learners will apply their knowledge in real-world situations. We create clear pathways with defined milestones to help learners achieve the necessary competencies.
Our team has subject-matter expertise in:
Additionally, we collaborate closely with experts from various fields to design comprehensive and well-rounded learning experiences for a wide range of veterinary-related topics and audiences. This includes animal owners, veterinarians, allied veterinary professionals, regulatory officials, and industry teams.
When we work with you, our process follows backwards design principles and involves:
We will work closely with you to understand what tasks your learners need to be competent in performing after completing the training programme. Then, we will define clear learning outcomes (learner-centred) and objectives (lesson-centred) that align with real-world applications.
We can design assessments to evaluate whether students have achieved the necessary competency and reached key milestones in their learning journey, ensuring they are on track to effectively apply their knowledge and skills in practice. Depending on your resources and specific needs, these assessments can include multiple-choice questions (MCQs), short answers, essay-style responses, presentations, peer-marking, and more. They ensure a comprehensive evaluation of students’ competency and progress.
We specialise in creating online, self-directed modules that empower students to take control of their learning. Additionally, we can design blended learning approaches, interactive workshops, study guides, case-based discussions, and in-person training sessions to cater to various learning needs and environments.
Depending on our availability and your programme requirements (whether it’s a one-off training activity or ongoing support), we can either deliver the content ourselves or train individuals within your organisation to deliver the content effectively.
We can develop post-training feedback evaluations and surveys to evaluate the learner experience throughout the training programme and measure its impact on their behaviour and performance in practice.
Get in touch to set up a meeting with us to talk through your project requirements.
We believe the next generation of dashboards should go beyond displaying basic descriptive statistics and performance metrics to providing users with customised recommendations and actionable insights to drive meaningful improvements.
Our particular specialty is developing “clinical care wizards” — interactive online tools that translate the latest research into easy-to-follow, step-by-step guides that support veterinary teams and animal owners in collaboratively planning the best possible care for their animals.
We are currently integrating these tools into the VetMark software platform to ensure a seamless, all-in-one solution. If you have ideas for tools you’d like to see developed or if you’re interested in sponsoring the creation of tools to help your organisation better utilise its data and resources—we’d love to collaborate with you.
Get in touch to set up a meeting with us to talk through your project requirements.
If you need an unbiased evaluation of the latest research evidence to inform your work, strategy, or policy decisions, we can help by conducting systematic, scoping, or narrative reviews to synthesise relevant research and extract key insights.
Gates MC et al (2021) "Building veterinarians beyond veterinary school: challenges and opportunities for continuing professional development in veterinary medicine." Journal of Veterinary Medical Education 48.4: 383-400.
Gates MC et al (2021) "Factors influencing the performance of voluntary farmer disease reporting in passive surveillance systems: a scoping review." Preventive Veterinary Medicine 196: 105487.
Gates MC et al (2015) "Integrating novel data streams to support biosurveillance in commercial livestock production systems in developed countries: challenges and opportunities." Frontiers in Public Health 3: 74.
Enticott G, Earl L, & Gates MC (2022). "A systematic review of social research data collection methods used to investigate voluntary animal disease reporting behaviour." Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, 69(5), 2573-2587.
Hidano A, Enticott G, Christley RM, Gates MC (2018) "Modelling dynamic human behavioural changes in animal disease models: challenges and opportunities for addressing bias." Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 5, 137.
Littlewood KE, Heslop MV, & Cobb ML (2023) "The agency domain and behavioral interactions: Assessing positive animal welfare using the Five Domains Model." Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 10.
Mellor DJ, Beausoleil NJ, Littlewood KE, McLean AN, McGreevy PD, Jones B, & Wilkins C (2020) "The 2020 Five Domains Model: Including human–animal interactions in assessments of animal welfare." Animals, 10(10), 1-24.
Get in touch to set up a meeting with us to talk through your project requirements.
It really depends on the size and scope of the project work. We have managed projects ranging from $1k to $800k and can develop a project plan to suit your budget. Get in touch to arrange a chat so we can work through your requirements to give you an accurate quote.
Our goal is to make extension resources, continuing professional development courses, and software tools easily accessible to individuals involved in animal care. If your project is generating knowledge or materials that would benefit to the wider community, we will work with you to make arrangements for using the IP.
Fill out the information below and one of our team will be in touch within 1-2 business days to set up a meeting to chat through your project ideas.
