Slight decrease in animal experiments

3 years ago

The steady decrease in the number of animal experiments at Utrecht University and the University Medical Center Utrecht continued last year, according to their joint 2019 Annual Report on Animal Experiments.

There is a slight decrease compared to 2018: from 19,774 to 19,078 animal experiments. Since 2011, the number of animal tests at the institutions has halved, but since a few years the decline is leveling off. To accelerate the decline and stimulate high-quality animal-free research, a working group was set up to deal with the transition to animal-free innovations (TPI Utrecht).

Both institutes have been working for years on replacing, reducing and refining animal experiments. The establishment of TPI Utrecht is the next step. This working group organizes, among other things, creative meetings in which participants from different fields search together for animal-free innovations for a scientific question.

Full version in Dutch of the Year Report

English summary of the Year Report