Openness Agreement

Openness Agreement

The New Zealand Board of the Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching (ANZCCART), a Committee of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, has supported the development of an Openness Agreement on Animal Research and Teaching for New Zealand. A draft version of the Agreement went out for consultation in 2020/21, and was launched at the ANZCCART 2021 conference on 27 July 2021:

Press release about launch of Openness Agreement
Media coverage: New Zealand Herald; Science Media Centre NZ; Radio New Zealand; Farmers Weekly

New Zealand has long been committed to maintaining and improving high standards of animal welfare as well as undertaking world-leading research and teaching using animals. Those involved in research have an obligation to demonstrate and promote these values, and in order to be seen as trustworthy they must be open, transparent, and accountable for the research and teaching that they conduct, fund or support, including when the high standards they strive for are not achieved. Doing more to communicate the context in which animal research and teaching takes place, the work that organisations undertake to incorporate the Three Rs (the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of animals), the regulations that govern this research, and the systems that are in place to report and rectify poor practice is key.

The objective of this Agreement is to ensure that the public are well informed about what animal research involves, the role it plays in the overall process of scientific discovery, how such research is regulated in New Zealand, and what researchers and animal care staff do to promote welfare, reduce animal usage and minimise suffering and harm to the animals.

Several countries have now implemented (or are actively working on) formal ‘openness agreements’ to improve public understanding of animal research. Under such agreements, stakeholders make a public pledge to be more open about their involvement in animal research and explain details and reasons underlying it. The European Animal Research Association has several examples of openness agreements. The longest established openness agreement is the UK Concordat on Openness on Animal Research. The UK Concordat has operated successfully since 2014 and now has over 120 signatories representing leading universities, research institutes, government agencies, funders and industry.

Commitments

The Openness Agreement on Animal Research and Teaching in New Zealand sets out five Commitments that require signatories to take steps to be more open about the use of animals in research and teaching. The five commitments are:

We will be clear about why and how we use animals in research and teaching.
We will enhance our communications with the media and the public about our use of animals in research and teaching.
We will enhance our communications with tangata whenua about our use of animals in research and teaching.
We will be proactive in providing opportunities for the public to find out about research and teaching using animals.
We will report on progress annually and share our experiences.