The TATAbox is a game which gathers players around a common goal: inspire innovation & encourage collaboration to make New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) a reality.

The session brought together teams from the COST Action IMPROVE from Vienna (Austria), Rome (Italy) and Prague (Czech Republic) and the course moderator Valentin Salamone from Altertox on 21^st of May 2024.

The IMPROVE partners received a training about the TATAbox as well as a video tutorial before playing the game. Participants were introduced to the new education material dedicated to teaching about validation of alternatives to animal testing. Moreover, the IMPROVE partners were trained also to use this material for their master and bachelor students afterwards in their course.

The online course covered following aspects:

• To facilitate engagement and interaction around NAMs (new approach methodologies)
• To dive into the ecosystem of NAMs by playing the role of the key stakeholders involved in the
  development of NAMs ( NGO, SME, Academia, Industry)
• To learn NAMs and the Associated vocabulary (Glossary)
• To identify the key steps necessary for the validation of NAMs
• To stimulate collaboration between stakeholders in the chain of development of 3Rs or non-animal methods and technologies.
• To collaborate between end-users and developers (e.g. industry, regulators, biotech companies,
  policy makers) and increase the chance that developments meet performance criteria, which are
  fit-for-purpose and will actually be used, accepted and implemented
• To study and understand behavior of stakeholders and identify the drivers that cause them to
  use either (traditional) animal studies/methods or to choose for non-animal methods or
  combinations of them. Arguments may be diverse, e.g. ethical, common practice, scientific, …
• To increase cross-disciplinary science which is expected to lead to more effective research
  strategies, and hence, fewer animal testing. Stimulation of cross-disciplinary science starts with
  implementation of a cross-disciplinary learning environment. The network could organize a
  working group on interdisciplinary research for the purpose of fewer animal testing.
• To attract next generation of Young Researchers and Innovators (YRIs) for the 3Rs field, support
  them to learn about the manifold subjects, topics and possibilities in the field to contribute to the
  improvement of biomedical science in general and foster their education via workshops, training
  schools, conferences, etc.

Following learnings and positive feedbacks were collected after the online course:

• New information" and "thinking about": the game is very nice because it allows to learn the time course of the activities for the validation of new alternative methods. So I think it will be very useful for our students!
• Definitions connected to NAMs
• Learned some new terms in particular towards in silico modelling
• New definitions in the field of NAMs
• “During the second part of the workshop, some participants realised that they did not know enough about validation and encouraged them to learn more about the topic.