As part of the ongoing commitment to greater openness about animal research, the ten universities which conduct the most animal procedures have publicised their figures today, revealing that they collectively conducted a third of all UK animal research in 2016.* All ten universities appear in the QS World University Ranking Top 100.**

The top ten institutions conduct more than two thirds of all UK university animal research between them, completing a combined total of 1.4 million procedures. Over 99% of these procedures were carried out on rodents or fish, and in line with national data they were almost evenly split between experimental work and the breeding of genetically modified animals.

The ten universities are listed below alongside the total number of procedures that they carried out in 2016. Each institution’s name links to its animal research webpage which includes more detailed statistics. This is the second year in a row universities have come together to collectively publicise their numbers and examples of their research.

University

Total (2016)

University of Oxford

217,765

University College London

203,744

University of Edinburgh

203,285

University of Manchester

174,120

University of Cambridge

155,394

King's College London

155,058

Imperial College London

101,369

University of Sheffield

83,130

University of Birmingham

54,728

University of Glasgow

50,566

All ten universities are signatories to the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research in the UK, a commitment to be more open about the use of animals in scientific, medical and veterinary research in the UK. 116 organisations have signed the concordat including UK universities, charities, research funders and commercial research organisations and the University of Birmingham.

Wendy Jarrett, Chief Executive of Understanding Animal Research, which developed the Concordat on Openness, said: “The Concordat has fostered a culture of openness at research institutions up and down the country. Institutions now provide an unprecedented level of information about how and why they conduct medical, veterinary and scientific research using animals. Almost two-thirds of the university Concordat signatories provide their animal numbers openly on their website – accounting for almost 90% of all animal research at UK universities."

Animal research has played a key role in the development of virtually every medicine that we take for granted today. However, despite decades of dedicated research, many widespread and debilitating conditions are still untreatable. Medical research is a slow process with no easy answers, but animal research helps to take us incrementally closer to treatments for cancer, dementia, stroke and many other debilitating conditions.

While many animal studies do not lead directly to treatments for diseases, ‘basic science’ research helps scientists to understand different processes in the body and how they can go wrong, underpinning future efforts to diagnose and treat various conditions. Additionally, many studies will show that a line of research is not worth pursuing. Although this can be disappointing, such research is incredibly valuable as scientists need to know which methods do not work and why so that they can develop new ones. Animal studies can also help to answer a wide range of research questions that are not directly related to diseases, such as exploring how genes determine traits or how brain functions develop.

A spokersperson for the University of Birmingham said: “We are involved in research to develop drugs and medical technologies that will help in the fight against life threatening and debilitating diseases and improve health care for patients, and indeed animals too. Some diseases and health problems involve processes that can only be studied in a living organism. For example, treatments for heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and certain types of cancer have all been developed by involving animals in testing and research.

“We adhere to strict guidelines from the Home Office and are regulated by the Operational Guidance to the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which requires that experimentation on animals should only occur when there is no alternative research technique. As part of that regulatory framework we have periodic visits from a Home Office inspector who checks the welfare of the animals used in research and the facilities that they are kept in. During these visits the inspector is looking for evidence of a caring culture, which ensures responsible behaviour and respect for the use and care of animals.

“All research that requires the use of animals is scrutinised by the Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body to ensure that there are no possible alternatives to the use of animals and that studies are carried out to the highest standards of welfare and care, following the 3R's principles of replacement, reduction and refinement. The 3Rs are a widely accepted ethical framework for conducting scientific experiments using animals humanely.”

Ends

For further information, please contact:

1. Tom Holder at Understanding Animal Research press office, T: +44(0)203 6751235, M: +44(0)7802 482994.

2. Emma McKinney, Communications Manager (Health Sciences), University of Birmingham, tel: +44 (0) 121 414 6681. For out of hours enquiries please call +44 (0) 7789 921 165.

  •  The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 5,000 international students from over 150 countries.
  • Case studies are available from all contributing Universities.

*The Home Office recorded 3.94 million completed procedures in 2016, 1.40 million of which were carried out at the top ten universities. A total of 1.94 million procedures were carried out across all universities in 2016, representing almost half of all procedures in Great Britain.

** The QS World University Ranking aims to capture university performance using a variety of measures.

  • All numbers represent completed procedures on animals in 2016. The number of animals used may be slightly lower if some animals have been used in more than one procedure during the year.

Scientists at the University of Birmingham have developed a type of eye drop which could potentially revolutionise the treatment of one of the leading causes of blindness in the UK.

The research, published in Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, could spell the end of painful injections directly into the eye to treat the increasingly common eye disorder known as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which affects more than 600,000 people in the UK.

Scientists from the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Microbiology and Infection, invented a method of delivering the injected drug as an eye drop instead. Their laboratory research of the eye drops in rats obtained the same outcomes as the injected drug.