About AnNex

Our work seeks to understand the changing nature of these relations and obligations through new social and historical research on:

  1. The historical relations that forged the shared understandings across scientific practice, animal welfare and health benefits embodied in the UK’s Animals (in Science Procedures) Act in 1986
  2. The contemporary challenges emerging as scientific practices and social expectations change established patterns of laboratory animal use and supply, professional roles and responsibilities, and public and patient engagements
  3. The forms of dialogue between stakeholders, scientists, and publics that might contribute to remaking social contracts across the animal research nexus in the UK

Using animals in scientific research has been critical to the development of modern medicine. Animal research is also contingent on a complex network of social relations and ethical obligations across science and society, which are both formally constituted through law, and informal or assumed. These entanglements can be understood as the Animal Research Nexus.

    This research is funded by the Wellcome Trust (2017-2022). Our programme of research brings together leading researchers on the social and historical dimensions of animal research, uniting the strengths of five institutions, engaging creative practitioners, and advancing the work of early career researchers and PhD students.

    AnNex tagged content

    A list of site content that is tagged as Animal Research Nexus – grouped by type of content.

    Publications

    Issue 6

    Our recent work has explored visibility - of animals, practices, and labour - in animal research.

    Issue 5 of the AnNex Newsletter

    Issue 4 is a COVID-19 special edition

    Animal research is contingent on a complex network of relations and assurances across science and society, which are both formally constituted through law and informal or assumed. In this paper, we propose these entanglements can be studied through an approach that understands animal research as a nexus spanning the domains of science, health and animal welfare.

    The third issue of the AnNex Newsletter, December 2019

    This Statement explains how the Animal Research Nexus Team makes use of any personal information collected about you in connection with our research.

    In our experience so far, one aspect of working collaboratively is that tacit assumptions about academic working practices need to be made explicit. This report aims to highlight our working assumptions about the topic of publication ethics.

    Improving laboratory animal science and welfare involves many questions which social scientists and humanities scholars have researched, or have the capacity to inform. This paper outlines our “Collaborative Agenda for Future Humanities and Social Scientific Research on Laboratory Animal Science and

    Events

    Much social scientific, philosophical and historical work on animal research has followed the enclosures around research communities and the relatively closed nature of animal research to highlight the construction of boundaries around animal rese

    In June 2018, the Animal Research Nexus Team met with the Programme Advisory Committee, Project Advisors, and other invited colleagues.

    Blog entry

    Written by: Fiona French

    March 2019 saw the launch of the AnNex newsletter, a (roughly) quarterly offering to keep stakeholders up to date with the project, and we’ve been deli

    Written by: Sara Peres

    Our approach to research emphasises cross-project collaborations and transdisciplinary thinking. But what does this mean, in practical terms, for the work that we do and for our participants?

    Written by: Beth Greenhough

    At the start of this project we stated one of our key objectives was to generate new cultures of communication across science, health and animal welfare, which would shape the future of animal research in the UK.