Humane animal research should follow the principles of Replacement, Reduction, & Refinement (the 3Rs). These principles were laid out 60 years ago in the book The Principles of Humane Experimental Techniques by William Russell and Rex Birch. The 3Rs are internationally accepted principles for the ethical consideration of animals in research. They are often key goals for organizations and regulatory bodies that conduct animal research. Furthermore, public attitudes towards animal research are more positive when the 3Rs are used. Are you a member of the public curious about the 3Rs? Check out this webpage.
3RsC has created a 3Rs certificate program for anyone working with animals in the field to learn more about the 3Rs. Click here to learn more.
Refinement refers to any approaches that improve animal welfare, including minimizing pain, suffering and distress, for animals used for scientific research or teaching throughout the animals’ lifetime. Examples include improvements to experimental procedures, housing, and handling such as training animals to cooperate with handling/procedures or providing species-specific enrichment items.
Reduction refers to any methods that optimize research quality (e.g. rigour, reproducibility, translation) while reducing the number of animals necessary to obtain reliable and useful information. This includes implementing powerful, high-quality experimental design and analysis practices that are robust and reproducible, resulting in a “right sized” project that uses the minimum number of animals to fulfill the requirement and objective of the test. Reduction only occurs once an animal study has been deemed necessary. Additional examples include responsible animal breeding and, in well justified cases, re-use of animals.
Replacement refers to methods or technologies which avoid the use of animals to answer research questions where they would have otherwise have been used. Full replacement refers to replacing living animals with non-animal methods. Examples of replacement include in vitro (e.g., cell culture), in silico (e.g., computational modeling), in chemico (e.g., environmental health monitoring), and ex vivo methods (e.g., manipulation of human tissues outside the body).
Partial or relative replacement refers to methods that may require insentient animals or animal tissues, but the animals are not exposed to any pain or distress in the experiment at hand. This may include tissue sharing from agricultural or other projects, data sharing, or using animals such as fruit flies, nematodes, amoebae, and immature forms of vertebrates.