RSPCA Lay Members' Forum and workshops
Since 1999, the RSPCA has organised an annual meeting for lay and other members of Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Bodies (AWERBs). In 2020, we held four online regional workshops for lay members instead.
You can read about many of the previous events below.
2023
Download the review on animal use outside of the scope of the ASPA, retrospective review, and developing committee skills.
2022
2021
This year's meeting included four sessions on:
- Policy and topical issues
- Animal welfare and the 3Rs
- Training in ethics and the Culture of Care
- Role of the lay member
2020
2019
The programme for this year's 20th anniversary meeting included a talk and a discussion session on assessing the effectiveness of the Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body (AWERB), and feedback on key points from this years' meeting.
Looking forward to the next 20 years, there were also presentations on some topical issues in animal research: animal sentience and what this means for animal welfare, genome editing and obesity research.
2018
Topics at our Forum in London included: key recommendations from the Animals in Science Committee report on the harm/benefit analysis; a scientist's experience of appearing in front of the AWERB; the scientific basis for assessing the mental states of animals; and the experience of a lay member at a large biomedical research institution.
Looking forward to the next 20 years, there were also presentations on some topical issues in animal research: animal sentience and what this means for animal welfare, genome editing and obesity research.
2017
The programme included a discussion of how lay members' feedback and input can help improve the non-technical summary; ways to recognise and help alleviate boredom in research animals; the use of enrichment in zebrafish housing; recognising and reducing distress in research animals; and how animals are used in trauma research
2016
Topics discussed at this meeting included:
- Home Office perspective on how best to address projects that have major ethical implications or societal concerns
- Developing an AWERB in a global Contract Research Organisation
- The culture of care
- A discussion of how the 3Rs can be implemented in pain research
- A presentation of the 'Ratlife' video, which documented the behaviour of a group of laboratory rats when released into a semi-wild enclosure.
2015
- A Home Office view on the first two years of the AWERB
- Training, supervision and competence
- Working with wild animals
- The potential for organ-on-a-chip technology as a replacement
- Reviewing projects involving disease therapies.
2014
- Assessing harms and benefits
- Fish welfare
- Retrospective review
- Update from the European Commission
2013
The programme included a range of scientific, welfare and ethical topics and also covered issues relating to the implementation of the revised UK law.
2012
Topics covered:
- Transposition of Directive 2010/63/EU with emphasis on issues of particular relevance to the ethical review process
- How lay members would like to see the local ethical review process and the new national Animals in Science Committee develop in the future.
2011
The theme of 'Making difficult decisions'.
Topics included:
- Evaluating harms and benefits of new technologies
- Issues relating to humane endpoints and cumulative suffering
- Harms and benefits in behavioural pharmacology
- The challenge of ethical review in a global context.
For more information contact animalsinscience@rspca.org.uk
