If you’ve read any of my previous blogs, heard me speak at any conferences, or looked through our policy approach, you likely know that I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about transparency and animal research. It’s an area where transparency has historically been challenging to achieve, but without adequate transparency it is difficult to see exactly where and how animals are used, and where replacement opportunities are being missed. It’s also important to be able to determine where gaps exist in the development and availability of non-animal methods.  

Whilst there are many ways in which transparency could be improved, there are two specific areas that have received more attention recently – non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments. 

What are non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments?

Under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, researchers must apply for a project licence for every programme of work involving protected animals undergoing regulated procedures. As part of this, they must complete a project summary in easy-to-understand language, known as a non-technical summary. This is the only part of the licence that is published publicly, and includes information on:  

• What the project will involve 

• Its objectives 

• Predicted harms to the animals 

• Benefits of the work to society, animals or the environment 

• The number and species of animals that will be used  

It is also the only part of a licence that outlines how the 3Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement) will be implemented.  

Some project licences also require a retrospective assessment once the licence has ended. This includes any project conducting procedures classified as severe, licences issued for education or training purposes, and projects involving endangered species. These are also published publicly and must be submitted to the Government within six months of the licence ending. 

The purpose of these assessments is to evaluate:  

• Whether the work outlined in the licence was completed 

• Whether its objectives were achieved 

• The actual level of harm that was caused 

• Whether anything from the programme of work could advance the 3Rs 

What’s the problem?

I want to start by saying that the fact we get ANY publicly available information about animal research in the UK is great. Other countries release much less, even around the numbers of animals used. But, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues with the level of transparency in the UK and improvements that could be made, particularly around the non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments.  

In Great Britain, non-technical summaries are published as large PDF documents covering three-month periods. These documents can contain more than 100 summaries across 700–900 pages, with no search or filter functions. This makes them incredibly difficult to use and access individual summaries.  

Retrospective assessments face similar problems. Non-technical summaries requiring a retrospective assessment are first published in a separate PDF for that time period. Once completed, the retrospective assessment is added to the original PDF alongside the related summary. While this keeps the documents together, it makes retrospective assessments especially hard to locate because they are spread across multiple PDFs that cannot be easily searched. 

On top of this, many retrospective assessments have not been published, despite the date for their submission having passed. At the time of writing, there are many non-technical summaries that state that their retrospective assessments should be received by dates in 2023-2025, that have not yet been published. A specific reason for why they have not been published has not been given. 

It’s important to acknowledge at this point that issues with non-technical summaries don’t end at their inaccessibility. The content can vary considerably between each summary. Summaries with little or not very detailed information can make it difficult to see how, and if, replacement has been robustly implemented. Given that non-technical summaries are the only section of a licence application that covers how Replacement will be implemented, this is an issue. This is a huge part of our work that we have written about in other blogs, our policy approach, policy briefings and letters, and is a huge factor in the development of our Replacement Checklist and Searching for Alternatives guide.   

What could improve this?

Focusing back on transparency and accessibility, there is one key change that would improve non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments.  

In the EU, non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments are published in the Animal Use Reporting – EU System database, also known as the ALURES database. This allows for searching and filtering by country, project title, keywords, species, purpose, year and language.  

Implementing a database of this type is a change that we have been calling for in the UK for many years, as it makes the publications much more accessible and user-friendly. Having them in this format increases openness and transparency on how and where animals are used in science, as well as allowing for benchmarking and easier identification of replacement opportunities.  

What are the Government doing?

In 2024, the Home Office commissioned the Animals in Science Committee to review how non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments could be improved to make them clearer, more transparent, and more useful to the public by improving public understanding of how and where animals are used in research. 

In their report, the Animals in Science Committee made 16 recommendations to improve multiple different areas of the non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments. Those relating to transparency and accessibility included: 

• In the short term, making improvements to the process in which retrospective assessments are published. This should include: 

• Creating two documents. One for retrospective assessments that have been published, and another for those awaiting publication (as they are currently all in one document) 

• Updating titles and descriptions on the Government website to make it clearer that retrospective assessments have been published 

• Creating a dedicated retrospective assessment page 

• Implementing a searchable database for non-technical summaries and retrospective assessments 

In May 2026, the Home Office responded to these recommendations, accepting many of them in principle.  This includes exploring improvements to be made to the publication process by the end of 2026, such as the format of the documents and where they are published. Excitingly, the Home Office has also stated that it has “developed a prototype search tool for published non-technical summaries and will further test feasibility of implementation” subject to budgetary consideration, by the end of 2027. In other words, we might finally get a database (or at least something closer to one)! 

This is great news for accessibility and transparency, particularly in an area where there have been so many calls for change. A database may not be a concrete commitment at this time, but it is certainly a step in the right direction, and any improvements to how they are currently formatted are wins in my eyes.  

There is definitely more work to be done around transparency, both specifically around non-technical summaries and in the wider animal research sector. But we have plenty more improvements to share and push forward with the Government, so certainly won’t be letting my foot off the pedal anytime soon! 

If you would like to read more about our work in improving transparency, check out our policy approach.