I’d like to tell you a little story so grab a cuppa and get comfy. Like all the best it is a true story, although names and details have been changed to protect the identities of those concerned. It is the story of one of our summer studentship applicants and real discussions with their university about their project.  

Setting the scene

The University in question is a Russell Group (research intensive) university in the UK, and a signatory to the Concordat on Openness in Animal Research, and this correspondence happened in 2021 during COVID lockdowns. At the time it was difficult, if not impossible, for students to do lab-based projects, but we were encouraging applications to our Summer Studentship programme for other types of research such as surveys or literature reviews that would shed light on areas relevant to our mission and give students useful skills and experience. This particular student – let’s call him Gavin – was interested in what education on the 3Rs students at different levels, on different modules, in UK higher education received and what they thought about it. He enlisted a supervisor, we’ll call her Annelisa, who was entirely supportive of the project, they put together a solid project application which we agreed to fund. 

The first hurdle

The initial project consisted of an anonymous survey, with follow-up video interviews where participants were willing. As with all research of this type, it was submitted to their departmental ethical review committee, along with the supporting documentation confirming that no sensitive or identifying data was being collected, detailing how data would be stored, and providing details of the participant information and informed consent forms. The ethics committee had some concerns and sent detailed feedback. This is actually great experience for students and excellent training for how these processes work in action.  

The concerns raised a number of issues including that animal research is an “extremely contentious issue” and one that has “sometimes involved people who express their views on the subject in the public domain being threatened or targeted by extremists”. The committee sought increased assurances around the anonymity of participants, including that ISP addresses could not be collected or stored as part of the survey submission, and that as Gavin was an undergraduate student who had not had substantial ethical training, Annelisa would take a greater role and responsibility in ensuring data security.  

Gavin and Annelisa tested the survey collection for anonymity, provided evidence to the committee and addressed in detail the range of concerns, including completely removing the video element part of the project which could not easily be anonymised and focussing solely on the survey. They resubmitted the revised project detail and responses to feedback to the committee. 

They were refused again. This is an excerpt from the email:

“After consideration at the ethics committee, research committee and subsequently school management, we regret to inform you that the project cannot be approved.

The primary ethical consideration for this was based on our requirement to protect the safety of our staff and students. With a project on a contentious issue, this could not be guaranteed even with the anonymized survey questions and its data, and with a non-peer-reviewed undergraduate report being shared with an external organisation.”

Going to bat for our students

At this point Gavin was extremely demoralised and could see his plans for his summer falling apart. Unfortunately, Annelisa also got swallowed in the busyness of academic life and became less communicative (sadly this happens more often than you’d think).

We obviously thought the project was worthwhile and wanted to continue to support both it and Gavin. So having been forwarded all the correspondence we wrote to the Chair of the Ethics Committee.

We highlighted that this project was not actually about animal research, it was about the 3Rs, a concept enshrined in UK law for decades and which the University concerned very proudly and publicly supports. It was also not even about the implementation of the 3Rs in practice, it was about how they were taught.

And finally, it was not focused solely on Gavin’s home institution, it was planned to be sent out widely via Annelisa’s network to a range of establishments. We tried to respond very moderately to each point raised but we could not for the life of us see how the teaching provided to students on the 3Rs was a contentious issue, nor even with huge amounts of technical skill or internet sleuthing, how any institution or participant would be identifiable, let alone at risk. 

We failed. The committee stuck to their guns and Gavin reworked his project into a literature review.  

Lessons learned

I think about this story often, but in particular when I hear establishments promoting their ‘openness’ around animal research, or when I get lectured about how there really isn’t any work to do here as the UK has the most robust 3Rs legislation in the world. But if this is true why are we still uncomfortable talking about animal research? The reality is that we still live in a place where very recently according to multiple gatekeepers at a leading university, even talking about the 3Rs is apparently ‘contentious’ and a safeguarding concern. Sometimes, I despair. 

And then I get back up, make a coffee, and get back on with it. 

What do you think? Are you sympathetic to the university’s positioning on this? Let us know in the comments!