Introduction to "Working Across Species"

Comparison between different animal species is omnipresent in the history of science and medicine but rarely subject to focussed historical analysis. The articles in the ‘‘Working Across Species’’ topical collection address this deficit by looking directly at the practical and epistemic work of cross-species comparison. Drawn from papers presented at a Wellcome-Trust-funded workshop in 2016, these papers investigate various ways that comparison has been made persuasive and successful, in multiple locations, by diverse disciplines, over the course of two centuries. They explore the many different animal features that have been considered to be (or else made) comparable, and the ways that animals have shaped science and medicine through the use of comparison. Authors demonstrate that comparison between species often transcended the range of practices typically employed with experimental animal models, where standardised practises and apparatus were applied to standardised bodies to produce generalizable, objective data; instead, comparison across species has often engaged diverse groups of nonstandard species, made use of subjective inferences about phenomena that cannot be directly observed, and inspired analogies that linked physiological and behavioural characteristics with the apparent affective state of non-human animals. Moreover, such comparative practices have also provided unusually fruitful opportunities for collaborative connections between different research traditions and disciplines

Organisms in experimental research

Rachel A. Ankeny and Sabina Leonell

Lessons for the Future of NAMs from History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science

This is the author accepted manuscript.This paper explores what we can learn from the humanities and social sciences about how standards operate in and around science in order to understand more about how ‘the gold standard’ can be shifted away from the use of animals in research and testing to new approach methodologies (NAMs). These fields allow us to consider potential futures of NAMs as alternatives, replacements, or complements to animal testing and research. As we demonstrate, the questions that we pose and how they are framed are as important as the answers that result. Rather than asking how to ‘redefine the gold standard,’ norms and expectations for NAMs must be actively debated and transparently defined, based in part on what has been learned in the past from non-human animal models and systems, but also using norms within the fields from which the NAMs derive and in light of the rich broader contexts within which they are being developed. As we argue, notions such as ‘a gold standard’ are limited and must be replaced by contextualized standards that depend on the scientific, sociocultural, and other factors that contribute to our understan¬¬ding of a particular method (new or otherwise) as ‘good’ for a particular purpose.Australian Research Council (ARC)Wellcome Trus

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