The animal research nexus: changing constitutions of science, health and welfare

This five-year collaborative programme will develop approaches for understanding laboratory animal research as a nexus, asking how reconceptualising connections and generating communication across different perspectives can contribute to improving the future of animal research. New research will draw attention to historical independence between science, health and welfare; identify challenges emerging at the interfaces of animal research, and create opportunities to inform policy and public engagement. We suggest collaborative approaches are essential for understanding how rapid transformations across science and society are changing the patterns of responsibility, trust and care which hold together, or constitute, this nexus. 

We will deliver: integrated research across the social sciences and humanities, using historical research to inform understanding of present challenges and create new engagement opportunities for the future; interactive research projects, co-produced with researchers, animal suppliers, veterinarians, the public and patients, to investigate the contemporary dynamics of animal research; interfaces for generating cultures of communication with the public, policy-makers and practitioners across the animal research nexus.