Editorial

Welcome to this Special Issue of ATLA — one that celebrates the success of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) 2021 summer school on Non-Animal Approaches in Science: ‘The Three R…evolution’! In order to drive forward the Three Rs agenda, it is essential to educate the next generation of scientists in the practicalities and potential opportunities for using alternatives. The focus on education is a key theme in ATLA’s strategy to disseminate information and promote the uptake of alternatives — and this theme complements the philosophy of the EU Reference Laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (EURL ECVAM), at the JRC. In this issue, the organisers of the JRC Summer School 2021 are delighted to highlight the ongoing efforts of EURL ECVAM, as well as to showcase the excellent, and highly diverse, research being undertaken by the early career researchers who presented their work at the event this year.

EU legislation has established a mandate for EURL ECVAM through Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, ¹ listing a number of duties to advance the Three Rs (i.e. the replacement, reduction and refinement of animal procedures), ² with replacement being the ultimate goal. One important activity of EURL ECVAM is the promotion of alternatives to animal testing across a range of disciplines and sectors, including education. EURL ECVAM believes that training is key, and that this will push forward a fundamental change in how biomedical and toxicological research are performed, and in the way in which risk assessment is conducted.

In this context, the JRC Summer School on Non-Animal Approaches in Science plays an important role. As described in the Preface, this initiative came to life at the JRC in Ispra, Italy in 2017, after a long tradition of hosting students from the Karolinska Institute’s Master’s programme in Toxicology for a few days each year. The Comment by Annika Hanberg ³ in this issue gives an interesting perspective from the Karolinska Institute, with regard to their collaboration with the JRC on this training visit. The JRC decided to expand this invitation to other Master and PhD students, as well as early career scientists, from all over the world, with an interest in the topic of alternatives.

Since then, three successful runs of the event have taken place, and the intention is to continue to hold them biennially. The 2021 summer school was held entirely online, due to travel restrictions during the Covid pandemic — this enabled students with limited opportunities for travel to attend. The feedback received from participants after each event inspired us to continue to develop and improve the programme to be as inclusive, complete, sustainable and interactive as possible. Indeed, the 2019 summer school was awarded First Prize in the European Commission’s Corporate Competition on Sustainable Conferences and Events.

In addition, this year, EURL ECVAM is celebrating its 30th anniversary. To mark this occasion, this Special Issue of ATLA is dedicated to the topic of alternatives and education (with an emphasis on the concept of the JRC summer schools), and also mentions some of the other significant and important work carried out by EURL ECVAM. The section on EURL ECVAM Activities highlights a number of significant and important projects, putting the work into the context of the EU legislation. It describes the role of EURL ECVAM in the implementation of the EU legislation on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (EU Directive 2010/63/EU ¹ ), celebrates EURL ECVAM’s 30 years of supporting non-animal approaches in science, and outlines the crucial efforts being made to introduce the Three Rs into secondary schools, universities and continuing education programmes.

Finally, the Preface includes a historical account of the development of the JRC summer school programme over the years, as well as detailing the speakers’ presentations from the 2021 course. It also features the poster abstracts submitted by the participants. Six of these participants were honoured to receive poster prizes, and we caught up with them to learn more about their current work and hear about their exciting plans for their future projects and careers (see 2021 Poster Prizes).

We hope that this all provides inspiration to former and future summer school attendees, as well as the readers of ATLA!