The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) has announced its 2023 Refinement Prize. Application deadline: 18 September 2023
This prize of €6,000 will be granted to a laboratory technician, animal caretaker or technologist who has demonstrated outstanding achievements in new, novel approaches to advance the implementation and/or awareness raising of refinement of animal testing.
Purpose
Laboratory technicians, technologists and animal caretakers carry out much of the work using animals for regulatory safety and efficacy testing purposes. They are thus closely involved in efforts to apply refinement strategies in such studies. refinement is one of the 3Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement of testing on animals). It involves the modification of any procedure, husbandry and care practices with laboratory animals along their entire lifetime, so as to minimise pain and distress and enhance their well-being.
The purpose of this prize is to target those actually implementing alternative approaches to animal testing and/or raising awareness of their role, in particular for the day to day application and innovation of the refinement principles.
Prize
The EPAA partners will sponsor a €6,000 prize to be awarded in 2023. Applications can be submitted by an individual or on behalf of a team. The team must consist of at least one laboratory technician, technologist, or animal caretaker. The team can be supported by maximum one young scientist (master's student, PhD student or postdoc). The money awarded is a prize, not a grant. It therefore does not require any prior justification of how it will be used. Nevertheless, the EPAA recommends linking its use to (further) promotion of alternatives, e.g. for travel and accommodation fees for a conference, publication costs, etc. The winner (or the winning team) will be invited to the EPAA Annual Conference in November 2023 to receive the prize and briefly describe his/her/their contribution to the 3Rs.
The EPAA will publish and/or communicate about the methodologies described in the winning submission. To facilitate the widest dissemination and uptake, the work of the runners-up will also be covered at the discretion of the jury.
For more information (eligibility and selection criteria and application process) please click here
