Andrew Tyler Award

In 2017 Lush Prize introduced a new award for outstanding contribution towards ending animal testing.

The non-financial prize is named after Andrew Tyler, former director of Animal Aid and a founding Lush Prize judge.

The winner is selected at the discretion of the Lush Prize judging panel and will not necessarily be awarded each prize year.

 

Award and Tributes

 
In 2022 it was awarded to Dr Gill Langley, who has long been a friend of the Lush Prize and served as a judge for every prize awards from 2012 to 2020. Gill is an animal rights scientist and writer who specialises in non-animal alternatives to animal research and testing.

From 1981 to 2008 she was the science director of the Dr Hadwen Trust, a medical research charity funding health research without using animals.

In 2020 it was awarded to Andrew Rowan PhD, President of Wellbeing International, and former CEO of Humane Society International. He has also served on the committees of several animal protection groups, including the World Society for the Protection of Animals.

In 2018 it was awarded to Professor Horst Spielmann. Horst is head of the European Society for Alternatives to Animal Testing and for the past 30 years his work has been instrumental in the development and acceptance of scientific alternatives to animal use globally.

At the 2017 Awards ceremony Andrew’s wife Sara Starkey accepted the first award on his behalf. This video includes tributes to Andrew.

 

“We have to describe the future that we want.”

When Lush Prize was launched in 2012 as an annual prize fund to support campaign and science initiatives to end animal research, one of the first steps was to set up an expert panel of judges who could also act as an advisory board.

There was no doubt that one person we wanted as a judge, who had consistently and expertly highlighted the moral outrage as well as the scientific invalidity of experimenting on animals, was Andrew Tyler.

Since 1995, Andrew had been the Director of Animal Aid, Europe’s largest animal rights organisation. With a background in journalism – first for various music press then, as a freelance writer, the Observer, Independent, Guardian and others – Andrew had a commitment to strong research and investigations underpinning Animal Aid’s work.

This video outlines the achievements of this remarkable activist.

In an interview in 2012 he discussed the challenges ahead and said he had hope that the public would “wake up” to what was happening in labs, remarking: “We have to describe the future that we want“.

Andrew remained a judge for the first three years of Lush Prize, with an unwavering commitment to supporting an end to animal experiments.

The whole Lush Prize Team was devastated to hear that Andrew had passed away. He was one of the most dedicated, compassionate and outspoken defenders of animals the movement has seen, and our hearts go out to his wife Sara, stepson Davey, and the Animal Aid ‘family’.