science

Understanding Animal Research

Understanding Animal Research is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Understanding Animal Research rather than just read about it. In short: Understanding Animal Research (UAR) is a British membership organisation formed in late 2008 through the merger of the Research Defence Society and the Coalition for Medical Progress. Its main aims are to "explain why animals are used in medical and scientific research.

Key takeaways

Understanding Animal Research belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Understanding Animal Research to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Understanding Animal Research from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Understanding Animal Research (UAR) is a British membership organisation formed in late 2008 through the merger of the Research Defence Society and the Coalition for Medical Progress. Its main aims are to "explain why animals are used in medical and scientific research. We aim to achieve a broad understanding of the humane use of animals in medical, veterinary, scientific and environmental research in the UK".

History The Research Defence Society (RDS) was founded in 1908 "to make known the facts as to experiments on animals in this country; the immense importance to the welfare of mankind of such experiments and the great saving of human life and health directly attributable to them". Within a year, the society had over 2000 members with branches across the country organising lectures and debates. Over the next century the RDS campaigned against animal rights extremism including lobbying for a strengthened version of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill in 1994 and setting up a Legal Defence Fund in 1989 to pay the legal costs of scientists who were seeking libel actions. The Coalition for Medical Progress was launched in 2003 as part of a wider alliance to communicate the benefits of animal research to the wider public. In 1999, 65% of people agreed with the statement "I have a lack of trust in the regulatory system about animal research". By 2007, this has fallen to 35%. When the organisations merged Dr Simon Festing, executive director of the Research Defence Society, became its first chief executive. In November 2012 Wendy Jarrett, who formerly worked at NICE, took over as Chief Executive at UAR.

Activities UAR is a membership organization with over 110 organizational members as well as individual supporters. It is funded by its members who come from various sectors including academic, pharmaceutical, charities, research funders, professional and learned societies, executive agencies and trade unions. UAR seeks to explain the costs as well as the benefits of animal research and features explanations of procedures on its website. UAR takes a number of different approaches to engagement, from running a schools programme which encourages researchers to explain their work to students, to policy and media work, to engagement with institutions which undertake animal research. UAR were involved in the development and surrounding discussions of EU Directive 63/2010, which harmonised animal welfare standards in labs throughout the EU. UAR has applauded the quality of welfare for animals used in research in the UK, saying that it is held to the highest standards in the world. The website provides extensive information, including statistics and videos, and news on animal research in the UK and beyond. In addition to the Understanding Animal Research Website the organisation has created AnimalResearch.Info a website that provides peer-reviewed, fully referenced information on animal research and labanimaltour.org, which offers a guided tour of four laboratories with embedded videos of experiments, procedures and supporting processes such as feeding and cleaning. In 2012, Understanding Animal Research, responding to a small dip in public support for animal research, announced the Declaration of Openness with 41 organisations, including charities, pharmaceuticals and universities, promising to take part "in an ongoing conversation about why and how animals are used in research and the benefits of this". On 14 May 2014, 72 signatories came together to sign the Concordat on Openness on Animals in Research in the UK, pledging to enhance their communications regarding the animal research they support, fund or conduct. As of 22 August 2017 the Concordat has been signed by 116 organisations.

See also Three Rs (animal research) Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations

References

External links UAR website Animalresearch.info The global resource for scientific evidence in animal research

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Understanding Animal Research

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Understanding Animal Research claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Understanding Animal Research before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Understanding Animal Research ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Understanding Animal Research

In research: Understanding Animal Research appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Understanding Animal Research in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Understanding Animal Research is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Animal testing in the United Kingdom, Organisations based in the London Borough of Islington, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Understanding Animal Research outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Understanding Animal Research in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Understanding Animal Research means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Understanding Animal Research out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Understanding Animal Research in simple terms?

Why does Understanding Animal Research matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Understanding Animal Research?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Understanding Animal Research.