From Thursday, May, 2nd to Friday, May, 3rd, 2024, our Public Affairs Officer Burak Bali attended the Openess conference in the West Midlands (UK).
May 2024 marked the 10th anniversary of the UK's Concordat on Openness in Animal Research. To celebrate this important milestone of the world's first transparency agreement, Understanding Animal Research is delighted to be organising a unique conference on openness in animal research.
The Openness in Animal Research Conference 2024 brought together colleagues from around the world who have a professional interest in openness and improving the welfare of laboratory animals, whether they already have an openness agreement or are working towards one.
The conference was also an opportunity to come together, share ideas, celebrate the achievements of the Concordat and look ahead to the next ten years. The programme includes presentations, workshops and posters from international science communicators who are committed to openness in animal research. There will be sessions on a wide range of communication activities, including lab tours, digital projects, public engagement, writing skills, social media and more.
Burak Bali also presented our schools programme work at the conference with a poster. With this school programme, we visit schools and talk to students about the 3Rs principle and animal testing. We want to create a dialogue between scientists and animal welfare officers and pupils on this topic and show different perspectives.
Our work in schools also impressed the poster jury, so we won the poster award at this year's Openess Conference. It is a great honour for our work. We are very happy about the award.