Research Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hiebl

Funding: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, 625.000 EUR

Project Details:
As long as animal experiments cannot be completely replaced, the question will arise on which animals research should take place. In this project, an interdisciplinary working group wants to investigate the ELSA-relevant question, according to which criteria the selection of laboratory animal models takes place or should take place. The aim of the enterprise is to determine the manifold reasons for the choice of certain laboratory animals; the process is interdisciplinary in the full sense of the word and put the different rationalities into a well-founded correlation. The question condenses several open and important issues concerning the treatment of animals. The answer is to be examined in each of the disciplines involved, between them and finally in their association, whether it is possible to establish a coherent catalog of criteria that also creates clarity for the practice of animal experimentation, both for everyday research and at the interface to legislation and enforcement. This is important against the background of rapidly changing social value judgements about animals, which also lead to permanent tensions here. In this project we want to investigate the ELSA-relevant question of the criteria for the selection of laboratory animal models. We follow an interdisciplinary approach, which is represented by the following cooperation partners: Its members are: Prof. Dr. Peter Kunzmann (ethics), Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hiebl (laboratory animal science), Prof. Dr. Maren von Köckritz-Blickwede (infection research) (all TiHo- Hannover) and the legal scientist Prof. Dr. Dr. Tade Spranger (University of Bonn).

Cooperation Partners:

Tade Spranger, Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät, Bonn

Funding: TIB, 104.334 EUR

Project Details:
Within the framework of this joint project of the TiHo with the MHH, it is planned to thematically expand and extend the OER collection "Animal Welfare and Ethics" on the Lower Saxony OER platform "Twillo" to include OER contributions on agricultural livestock farming, also from the perspective of public health ethics, taking into account the One Health concept. This is based on the great importance of agriculture for Lower Saxony. Agriculture there has a share of 8.9% of the gross domestic product. The planned OER will address the economic importance of the individual livestock branches as well as the different forms of animal husbandry and the state animal welfare initiative referring to it. Animal ethics, as an established branch of philosophical ethics, is sometimes very critical of farm animal husbandry. However, the ethical discussion of farm animal husbandry from the perspective of medical and public health ethics remains largely unaddressed, especially in the German-speaking world. Therefore, the OER should also support Twillo users in understanding the basics of the human-animal relationship in farm animals.

Results:

The OER named in the application were created and uploaded to twillo.de:

OER "Economic importance of agricultural pig farming"

OER "Economic importance of agricultural cattle farming"

OER "Economic importance of agricultural chicken husbandry"

OER "Forms of husbandry in pig fattening"

OER "Forms of husbandry in chicken fattening"

OER "Housing systems for cattle on conventional dairy and fattening farms"

OER "Farming husbandry systems for chickens"

As there were legal changes to the state animal welfare label by the end of the approval period, the OER "state animal welfare label" could not be created. Instead, the following OER was created:

OER "economic importance of livestock farming"

Cooperation Partners:

MHH

Funding: BMBF, 212.548 EUR

Project Details:
We applied for an follow-up financing in order to increase the reach, the attractiveness as well as the functionaliy of the platform. Due to corona this was not possible to a sufficient extent within the originally planned projekt period. The following optimizations are now planned for the top-up phase:
Target group expansion to include interested non-scientists.
Networking of 3R-SMART with established online portals of external partners.
Integration of an area with Open-Educational-Resources.
Integration of a collection of contributions to 3R centers.
Integration of interactive elements into existing contributions.

Cooperation Partners:

Philipps-Universität Marburg

Funding: MWK über Technischen Informationsbibliothek (TIB), 89.827 EUR

Project Details:
Initiierung einre OER-Sammlung zum Thema "Tierschutz und Ethik"

Funding: Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, 89.827 EUR

Project Details:
The aim of the joint project between the TiHo and the MHH is to initiate an OER collection on the topic of "animal welfare and ethics" on the Lower Saxony OER platform. Based on preliminary work in the past three years, OER's on the topic "Alternatives to animal experimentation" will be started for the development of this collection.

Results:

As part of the project, an OER collection on the topic of "Alternatives to animal testing" was created with the following OER contributions:

(1) Discussing ethical issues

(2) What is an animal experiment?

(3) 3R International: USA

(4) 3R International: Israel

(5) Animal interests and animal rights positions

(6) Anthropocentrism, pathocentrism, biocentrism?

(7) The moral status of animals (with subtitle)

(8) The moral status of animals (without subtitle)

(9) Animal experimentation ethics: an introduction

(10) The 3Rs concept

(11) The epiCS test (with subtitles)

(12) The epiCS test (without subtitles)

(13) The LDH test (with subtitle)

(14) The LDH test (without subtitles)

(15) EU Directive 20210/63, Animal Welfare Act, Animal Welfare Experimental Animal Ordinance

Cooperation Partners:

Medizinische Hochschule Hannover

Funding: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, 500.218 EUR

Project Details:
Directive 2010/63/EU obliges a more consistent implementation of the 3Rs principle in the use of animals for scientific purposes, with the consequence of increased research activities in this field. The University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover and the Philipps University Marburg want to support these 3R research activities in a joint effort through a pilot project to establish an open access training platform for 3R methods and to make 3R methods more transparent and visible.

Results:

3R SMART

Directive 2010/63/EU requires a more consistent implementation of the 3Rs principle in the use of animals for scientific purposes, resulting in increased research activities in this field. The Hanover University of Veterinary Medicine Foundation and the Philipps University of Marburg wanted to support these 3R research activities and make them more transparent and visible through a pilot project to set up an open access training platform for 3R methods.

The aim of the project was to set up an open access training platform for 3R methods that would (A) make visible the high level of scientific, but also industry-driven commitment to the development of alternative methods to animal testing, in order to (B) offer not only information that relates specifically to individual 3R methods, but also fundamental background information on the 3R concept (e.g. on the ethical classification of the 3R concept). (C) to offer the training content in the form of short, easy-to-understand video contributions and thus usefully supplement the text-based content of established alternative methods databases (e.g. AnimAlt-ZEBET, DB-ALM).The content was closely aligned with the recommendations from the workshop "Teaching Alternative Methods to Animal Experimentation", which was organized by the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing in Europe (CAAT) and the Transatlantic Think Tank for Toxicology (t4). According to these recommendations, the high degree of diversification of knowledge about 3R methods makes it necessary to teach the essential contents of the 3R concept in a modular way. In the 3R-SMART, this is achieved through modules on 3R background information (basic modules) and on individual 3R methods (advanced modules). To ensure broad acceptance of the 3R-SMART, the EU Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, the German Center for the Protection of Laboratory Animals (Bf3R) at the BfR, the EU Berlin with the Berlin-Brandenburg research platform BB3R, and BASF were involved in designing the content.

The 3R-SMART has been online since March 2020 and has already been very popular. A total of 1,097 visitors were already registered via the web analytics platform Matomo in 2020, although it is expected that this development can be significantly increased with the optimizations planned in the expansion period.

Cooperation Partners:

Philipps-Universität Marburg, Deutsches Zentrum zum Schutz von Versuchstieren (Bf3R) am BfR, FU Berlin mit der Berlin-Brandenburger Forschungsplattform BB3R, BASF