Imperial has had a pretty rocky history with Animal Research within the College and its public image. From the low point of the 2014 Home Office statement that there was a “widespread poor culture of care”, such clear progress has been made that College have now been awarded for their work towards Animal Welfare. Imperial College has been presented with a Highly Commended award in the category of Public Engagement Activity at the annual awards for Openness on Animal Research.

Mandy Thorpe, Director of Central Biomedical Services, who accepted the award on behalf of Imperial, said: “It was fantastic to be recognised for our ongoing work in being more open about our research involving animals. At Imperial we are committed to sharing the results of our research, and when that has involved animal studies, we strive to explain how and why animals were involved.

Unfortunately, Imperial College doesn’t seem to have managed to move completely past the CFI (Cruelty Free International) investigation in 2013 that alleged “appalling animal suffering on a very large scale” on the Hammersmith campus, even with only five of the 180 charges from the report substantiated by the Home Office. The organisation CFI has relatively recently challenged the College’s provision of 24-hour care for animals.

As new statistics on the use of animals in experiments were released in March, said that information released under the Freedom of Information Act showed that Imperial was failing to provide 24-hour care for animals. This was disputed by the College with an Imperial spokeswoman stating that outside normal working hours, there was “always at least one vet and five senior animal care staff on call” to attend to any emergencies. She continued, “The college complies with the Home Office’s regulations concerning out-of-hours care, and works closely with the Home Office as regulator.”

As far as the actual levels of animal research at College are concerned, there has not been a significant decrease in the number of animals involved in research between 2015 and 2103⁄14, however, there has been a decrease from 8% to 6% from 2015 to 2014 in the proportion of experiments producing a “severe” effect on the animal involved. So, is the College actually better at treating the animals used for research properly? There’s an argument that we were never really that bad. One’s thing for certain, we’re definitely better at talking about it.