FELASA accreditation of education and training courses in laboratory animal science according to the Directive 2010/63/EU.

THE FOUR EU FUNCTIONS AND BEYOND: FELASA accredits courses that fulfil the requirements of Functions A, B, C and D as defined by EU Directive, Article 23, as well as for designated veterinarians and specialists in laboratory animal science. MODULARITY AND MOBILITY: Cohesive courses for Functions and for very specific topics are accredited, but flexibility and mobility are possible: a researcher can start his/her training with one FELASA accredited course and complete other modules with another. A course organizer will deliver a FELASA certificate relating to the successfully completed modules. ACCREDITATION PROCESS: The process consists of two major steps: (1) a review of full course documentation provided by the applicant will lead, if successful, to FELASA accreditation. The course is posted on the FELASA website as 'FELASA accredited' and the course provider can deliver FELASA certificates upon successful completion of the course; (2) successful accreditation is followed by an on-site course audit. In the case of a negative outcome of the audit, FELASA accreditation is withdrawn, the course is deleted from the list of FELASA accredited courses and FELASA certificates cannot be issued. To ensure that quality is maintained, continuation of accreditation requires regular revalidation.

The Experimental Design Assistant.

Addressing the common problems that researchers encounter when designing and analysing animal experiments will improve the reliability of in vivo research. In this article, the Experimental Design Assistant (EDA) is introduced. The EDA is a web-based tool that guides the in vivo researcher through the experimental design and analysis process, providing automated feedback on the proposed design and generating a graphical summary that aids communication with colleagues, funders, regulatory authorities, and the wider scientific community. It will have an important role in addressing causes of irreproducibility.

Developing a Collaborative Agenda for Humanities and Social Scientific Research on Laboratory Animal Science and Welfare.

Improving laboratory animal science and welfare requires both new scientific research and insights from research in the humanities and social sciences. Whilst scientific research provides evidence to replace, reduce and refine procedures involving laboratory animals (the '3Rs'), work in the humanities and social sciences can help understand the social, economic and cultural processes that enhance or impede humane ways of knowing and working with laboratory animals. However, communication across these disciplinary perspectives is currently limited, and they design research programmes, generate results, engage users, and seek to influence policy in different ways. To facilitate dialogue and future research at this interface, we convened an interdisciplinary group of 45 life scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, non-governmental organisations and policy-makers to generate a collaborative research agenda. This drew on methods employed by other agenda-setting exercises in science policy, using a collaborative and deliberative approach for the identification of research priorities. Participants were recruited from across the community, invited to submit research questions and vote on their priorities. They then met at an interactive workshop in the UK, discussed all 136 questions submitted, and collectively defined the 30 most important issues for the group. The output is a collaborative future agenda for research in the humanities and social sciences on laboratory animal science and welfare. The questions indicate a demand for new research in the humanities and social sciences to inform emerging discussions and priorities on the governance and practice of laboratory animal research, including on issues around: international harmonisation, openness and public engagement, 'cultures of care', harm-benefit analysis and the future of the 3Rs. The process outlined below underlines the value of interdisciplinary exchange for improving communication across different research cultures and identifies ways of enhancing the effectiveness of future research at the interface between the humanities, social sciences, science and science policy.

A proposed higher education institution-based Three Rs advisory service.

The University of Oxford's Ethical Review Process (ERP) is promoting a pilot scheme for a collaborative UK higher education institution-based Three Rs advisory service. It is believed that there is scope for UK academia to make a significant contribution, through the spread of its science base and the availability of high-quality library and IT services. A collaborative approach based on the concept of the critically appraised topic is envisaged, to minimise duplication and to ensure that limited resources are used to good effect. The initial objective is to identify, research, and validate refinement and replacement alternatives, drawing on both the skills of the information professional and the analogy of evidence-based health care. The results would be disseminated among member institutions by way of web-based systems, which could also offer on-line training in search strategies. The service would provide assistance to university-based project licence applicants, and would contribute to achieving the aims of the ERP, as an initiative "leading to the widest possible application of the Three Rs". It is hoped to develop the scheme in partnership with research council initiatives now under way, as the councils play a key role as funders, not only of research, but also of research student training. Universities are uniquely positioned, as centres of scientific education and, through continuing education, of continuing professional development, to provide a base for training in good practice. A successful pilot project could provide a foundation for a similar approach to reduction strategies and experimental design.

Parasite infection, host resistance and mate choice: battle of the genders in a simultaneous hermaphrodite.

Parasites have been proposed to be fundamental in the evolution of mate choice because differential mating on the basis of heritable disease resistance is expected to lead to progeny with a better genome-environment match than random mating. However, direct empirical data in support of this hypothesis are often lacking, and the relative influences of current and potential infection status (i.e. resistance genotype), and of mate choice versus mate conflict, remain largely unknown. We demonstrate experimentally, using simultaneous hermaphroditic snails (Biomphalaria glabrata) artificially selected for resistance or susceptibility to Schistosoma mansoni infection, that mate choice is influenced by a combination of current and potential parasitic infection status. As predicted by game-theory models, we also found a picture of conflict and cooperation: resistant and susceptible genotypes copulated in either gender and reciprocated (i.e. switched gender) equally when faced with an uninfected partner, but, by contrast, resistant snails actively refused to copulate as females with an infected partner. Such recognition and discrimination has implications for the maintenance of sex and the evolution of recognition systems.