Genova, 23^rd September 2025 - The COST Action IMPROVE successfully held its next 3Rs centres Workshop at the Università degli Studi di Genova, Dipartimento Architettura e Design (DAD), gathering leading researchers and stakeholders from across Europe.

Over two days from 17^th to 18^th of September, participants engaged in collaborative sessions focused on the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement) and the role and future activities within the 3Rs centre network EU3Rnet.

The workshop opened with remarks from Arti Ahluwalia and Winfried Neuhaus, followed by updates on the Memorandum of Understanding and the Balkan Regional 3R Centre.

Attendees took part in discussions on communication, funding, and sustainability, and enjoyed valuable networking opportunities, including a group dinner in the heart of Genova. The second day featured sessions on the organisation and management of EU3Rnet, short pitches on emerging topics, and the formation of new working groups to address key challenges in the field.

The hybrid format allowed both in-person (about 40) and online participation, ensuring broad engagement and collaboration.

This event was held together with the Next Gen3Ration Research meeting of the Italian 3R centre (Centro 3R; https://www.centro3r.it/it/events/next-gen3ration-research) from 18^th to 19^th of September.

A heartfelt thank you to the organisers of this remarkable event - Elena Grasselli and her team !

At the session titled “Do I have a choice? Reconciling personal and professional ethics in laboratory animal science training” Augusto Vitale presented a talk called “I am not sure I want to do this…: students’ emotional perspective on animal experiments”.

In this presentation he presented qualitative results form the interviews with 16 students at the istituto Superiore4 di Sanità in Rome. The interviews focused on the potential emotional difficulties encountered with experimental animals, and the way to solve such difficulties. The self-trust in carrying out such procedures in a professional manner was the main factor tu overcome the unpleasentness of the procedures. The sacrifice of animals resulted to be the most critical aspect. The majority of respondants can do it, when they manage to put aside the emotional aspect of killing a living being, and put forward the need for science. The ones who cannot follow this mental process will not sacrifice animals. Related to this, it appeared that one-on-one relationship with a tutor or supervisor was by far preferred to the participation in organised courses.

The crucial factors in addressing by staff members emotional distress in students were: give time and respect; never force anybody to do anything they dont feel like doing; understanding emotional diversity; empathy and dissipation of fears; re-locate tasks within a project.

At the session titled “A Win-Win Situation for Research Quality and Work Satisfaction: More Involvement of Animal Care Staff” (organised by Fernando Gonzales Uarquin and Paulin Jirkof) Augusto Vitale presented a paper called “The role of technicians in qualitative assessment of animal welfare and the subjective experience”.

In this paper he addressed the role of technicians in the qualitative assessment of animal welfare, particularly in the context of non-human primate research. The presentation underscored that while objective welfare indicators are important, technicians—through their daily interactions and familiarity with individual animals—can provide valuable insights into psychological wellbeing and individual differences. Empathy and mutual trust between staff and animals were highlighted as important factors in welfare assessment. Empathy was also identified as a common and necessary requisite to carry out daily maintenance of animal colonies.

At the FELASA 2025 Congress in Athens, the SkillUp Tech session titled “A Win-Win Situation for Research Quality and Work Satisfaction: More Involvement of Animal Care Staff” brought together professionals from across Europe to discuss the evolving role of animal care staff and technicians in laboratory animal science. The session, chaired by Fernando Gonzalez Uarquin and Paulin Jirkof, focused on the potential benefits and current challenges of increasing the involvement of these staff members in research planning and conduct. A quick on-site survey revealed that a high number of lab technicians and animal care staff participated in the session.

Survey Insights: The current situation of Communication and Involvement

Sophie Schober presented findings from a large-scale, European survey conducted under the COST Action IMPROVE initiative. The survey, which gathered responses from more than 30 countries, revealed several key points:

• Overall, researchers rated communication with other project members as good, but actual discussion about experimental planning with animal care staff occurred infrequently.
• Animal care staff and technicians expressed a clear interest in being more involved in discussions about planning and conducting experiments, as well as in receiving training on experimental planning and protocol development.
• Both researchers and non-scientific staff recognized the value of such involvement for improving research quality

The Importance of Multidirectional Communication

Bettina Bert’s presentation highlighted that while animal experiments are essential for scientific progress, questionable research practices—such as poor planning, selective reporting, and lack of transparency—can undermine both the scientific and ethical value of these studies. Open science practices like preregistration, data sharing, and comprehensive reporting have the potential to address these issues, but successful implementation depends on all participants, including technicians and care staff, understanding the importance of research rigor and transparency. Bettina also presented results from the survey, ensuring the willingness of animal care staff to be involved in scientific discussions and indicating that there is still room to enhance communication and training in these areas together with animal care staff and lab technicians.

Qualitative Assessment of Animal Welfare

Augusto Vitale’s talk addressed the role of technicians in the qualitative assessment of animal welfare, particularly in the context of non-human primate research. The presentation underscored that while objective welfare indicators are important, technicians—through their daily interactions and familiarity with individual animals—can provide valuable insights into psychological wellbeing and individual differences. Empathy and mutual trust between staff and animals were highlighted as important factors in welfare assessment. Empathy was also identified as a common and necessary requisite to carry out daily maintenance of animal colonies

Interactive Discussion and Polling

The session included interactive polls, inviting participants to reflect on their professional background, experiences with compassion fatigue, and views on the involvement of care staff and technicians in experimental planning. The responses indicated a general openness to increased inclusion, particularly when supported by appropriate training and communication structures. It was also discussed that publishers could contribute to this process Lab technicians and animal care staff should be named in the acknowledgement or they should get the possibility to publish their opinions.

The poster dealt with the issues of communication, inclusion, and research culture within laboratory animal science supporting the central message of the session "SkillUp Tech session titled “A Win-Win Situation for Research Quality and Work Satisfaction: More Involvement of Animal Care Staff" involving all staff who contribute to animal research—especially those responsible for daily animal care—can lead to improvements in both animal welfare and research quality. Therefore, attention must be paid to training needs and implementation.

Date: April 9–10, 2025

Location: University of Helsinki

Over two days, the FIN3R Symposium and Workshop brought together experts, researchers, and professionals from laboratory animal science to discuss and advance the culture of care in Finland and Europe. The event featured lectures from international and Finnish speakers on the first day, followed by an interactive workshop on the second day.

COST Action IMPROVE participated through Fernando Gonzalez Uarquin’ s presentation on integrating animal care staff and lab technicians into experimental planning—a promising step toward enhancing transparency in research practices. Such initiative, created within CA IMPROVE, involve around 14 members of the Action.

On Day 1, the symposium was chaired by Mikko Karpale (University of Oulu) with lecturers from Paulin Jirkof (University of Zurich, Switzerland), Fernando Gonzalez Uarquin (University Medical Center Mainz, Germany), Jordi Tremoleda (Queen Mary University of London, UK), Vootele Voikar (University of Helsinki), Hajnalka Nadai (Experimentica), and Hanna-Marja Voipio (University of Oulu). The discussion panel was chaired by Noora Holk (Orion Pharma), allowing participants to exchange ideas and reflect on the day's topics.

On day 2, the workshop focused on practical aspects of communication challenges within animal facilities. Led by Jordi Tremoleda and Fernando Gonzalez Uarquin, it brought together 15 participants for an interactive session.

Key activities included: 1) Sharing Care-full stories to illustrate real-world experiences, 2) Group discussions addressing routine communication problems encountered in animal facilities. 3) Exploring training materials designed to adapt culture-of-care practices to different institutions. 4) Exchanging ideas and experiences among participants from diverse professional backgrounds.

For further inquiries about the FIN3R Symposium and Workshop or to learn more about the culture of care initiatives, please reach out to the organizing team via email at info@fin3r.fi. Additional resources, including training materials and networking opportunities, can also be accessed through the FIN3R website: www.fin3r.fi.

Next to the hybrid Management committee meeting, it was worked on several objectives, but also new topic of the working groups 1 and 2 such as the involvement of animal caretakers in the research process or a NAM expert data base.

Group photo at the end of the WG meetings

The COST Action IMPROVE has introduced itself at the Symposium on "3Rs and NAMs: all-inclusive?" in Utrecht, The Netherlands on the 19th of June 2024 (The 3Rs and NAMs: all-inclusive? - News & Events - Utrecht University).

See also following link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vootele-voikar-2020_3rs-3rs-activity-7209250078639718400-J2o9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

One session featuring leaders of the IMPROVE - 3Rs concepts to improve the quality of biomedical science (CA21139) - Winfried Neuhaus / Nuno Henrique Franco / Jeffrey Bajramovic , talking about sustainability of 3Rs and how this concept is covering good science with best methods available, also the role of increasing number of 3R Centers in Europe.

Thanks to a dissemination conference grant, Sophie Schober was able to attend the 3Rdays 2023 InN Motion in Innsbruck (Austria) from December 5-7^th 2023.

Two contributions (short talks) have been submitted and accepted:

Session 2: Refine Animal Interactions

Title: A re-usable open-source platform to upgrade rat cages

Session 3: 3R & Regulatory

Title: Ovariectomy in surplus female mice to generate cage mates for experimental males – a refinement to improve biomedical science (Co-Author)

The first presentation showed a newly developed cage platform for rat cages made by ISTA. This platform offers an additional level in standard cages and thus contributes to refinement of animal experiments.

The second presentation described the improvement of animal welfare in animals single-housed due to experiments by providing sterile cage buddies.

During the conference, Dr. Schober was involved in engaging discussions (animal welfare committee meeting, meeting of veterinarians specialized in laboratory animal science). Main topics have been the avoidance of surplus animals, the avoidance of the severity level “severe” in animal experiments as well as the education of veterinarians in Austria regarding lab animals and 3Rs.

All are central topics of the COST ACTION IMPROVE whose aims and work were disseminated at the Austrian 3Rs days.

Thanks to dissemination conference grants under Cost Action IMPROVE Arti Ahluwalia and Winfried Neuhaus attended the 12th World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences (WC12) from August 27-31, 2023.

Arti Ahluwalia presented two lectures, one in the Symposium “Future of Multi-Scale Modelling and Simulation in Disease and Toxicology” (Title of the talk: Lab on a laptop: beyond the experimental model) and one in the Symposium “Implementing the 3Rs in Education under the theme Next-Gen Education” (Title of the talk: Centro 3R, mainstreaming replacement through pervasive 3R education). The first presentation described some of the virtual models developed in her lab. During her talk she put forward the proposal that in vitro models might be replaced by the “lab on a laptop”. Following the symposium, she was involved in engaging discussions on the value of in-silico models, analysing why they are not widely used and how to render them accessible to enable the implementation of viable and valid alternatives to animal experiments. This is a central theme in IMPROVE. In the second presentation she described the state of knowledge on the 3Rs at Italian universities before and after the Italian Centro 3R’s (www.centr3r.it) campaign of pervasive education at all levels. The results showed how education significantly increases the application of the 3Rs and promotes responsible research linked to WG4 Education of our COST Action.

Winfried Neuhaus gave a talk in the session "A World of 3Rs Centres: Unity in Diversity" entitled "The Rise of European 3Rs centres and their network EU3Rnet" focusing on the promotion of the COST Action IMPROVE as an outcome of the collaboration of the European 3R centres.

The WC12 congress was a dynamic and variegated event, providing a great opportunity to discuss the future of the 3Rs with scientists from all over the world, network with young researchers and leaders in the field, and to showcase Europe’s leadership in this area.