Animal research nexus: a new approach to the connections between science, health and animal welfare

Abstract

Animals used in biological research and testing have become integrated into the trajectories of modern biomedicine, generating increased expectations for and connections between human and animal health. Animal research also remains controversial and its acceptability is contingent on a complex network of relations and assurances across science and society, which are both formally constituted through law and informal or assumed. In this paper, we propose these entanglements can be studied through an approach that understands animal research as a nexus spanning the domains of science, health and animal welfare. We introduce this argument through, first, outlining some key challenges in UK debates around animal research, and second, reviewing the way nexus concepts have been used to connect issues in environmental research. Third, we explore how existing social sciences and humanities scholarship on animal research tends to focus on different aspects of the connections between scientific research, human health and animal welfare, which we suggest can be combined in a nexus approach. In the fourth section, we introduce our collaborative research on the animal research nexus, indicating how this approach can be used to study the history, governance and changing sensibilities around UK laboratory animal research. We suggest the attention to complex connections in nexus approaches can be enriched through conversations with the social sciences and medical humanities in ways that deepen appreciation of the importance of path-dependency and contingency, inclusion and exclusion in governance and the affective dimension to research. In conclusion, we reflect on the value of nexus thinking for developing research that is interdisciplinary, interactive and reflexive in understanding how accounts of the histories and current relations of animal research have significant implications for how scientific practices, policy debates and broad social contracts around animal research are being remade today.

Animal Research beyond the Laboratory: Report from a Workshop on Places Other than Licensed Establishments (POLEs) in the UK

“…Discussion amongst workshop contributors centered around the idea of encouraging AWERBs, and similar ethical review bodies in other countries, to pay greater attention to POLEs and other nonlaboratory research. Some suggested that this might involve drawing the attention of AWERBs to how regulation and research practice work differently in and outside of the laboratory (see [ 2 , 5 , 39 ] for similar suggestions in the USA).…”

“…Research for the Animal Research Nexus project (AnNex; https://animalresearchnexus.org/) uses methods from social sciences, humanities, and public and stakeholder engagement to understand emerging issues in animal research and helps to encourage communication across the sector [39]. One substrand of AnNex focuses on animal research at POLEs; this research has suggested that many who work at POLEs would appreciate further discussion about the unique challenges that POLEs present to the researcher compared with laboratory settings.…”

(Not) Knowing and (Not) Caring About Animal Research

“…Though the writings of Mass Observers will be discussed in this paper as part of wider societal feelings towards animal research, it is pertinent to state that Mass Observers are not intended here to act as a proxy for 'the public' . Indeed, this notion of the 'general public' is not neutral yet is often constructed in animal research dialogues in ways which falsely portray neutrality (Davies et al, 2020). Rather, in offering analysis of MOP writing, this paper aims to emphasise the necessary situation of Mass Observers in their particular, yet shared, 'everyday' worlds, demonstrating the rich insights that attention to the micro in the macro can generate for studies of how publics relate to science.…”

Out of the laboratory, into the field: perspectives on social, ethical and regulatory challenges in UK wildlife research

“…This paper draws on qualitative social science research undertaken as part of 'The Animal Research Nexus' programme (AnNex: https://animalresearchnexus.org/): a collaborative, interdisciplinary project which aims to highlight historical and emerging challenges in the UK animal research sector, and encourage communication across and beyond the communities of animal research [29]. We draw on one specific strand of the AnNex project focusing on sites classed as Places Other than Licenced Establishments (or POLEs) under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (A[SP]A, 1986), which regulates invasive animal research in the UK.…”