Report on European Commission workshop on the roadmap to phase out animal testing
Lush Prize attends the 3rd Commission workshop on the roadmap to phase out animal testing
On 16 and 17 June, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), based in Helsinki, Finland, hosted the third European Commission workshop on the roadmap to phase out animal testing for chemical safety assessments. One hundred and fifty attendees were present, along with 400 attending virtually.
The event included eight in-depth sessions over two days, and marks the final workshop before the roadmap will be published and adopted by the European Commission in the first quarter of 2026.
Professor Laura Holden of the University of Birmingham gave the opening keynote presentation, titled ‘How do we need to change to transition to an animal-free chemical safety environment?’. This covered the socio-technical challenges of transition and how to achieve a greater collective understanding of what is needed via change management and training. A previous industry model was used to illustrate how early engagement for regulators and companies allowed everyone to know what was needed to prepare for the forthcoming changes and deadlines, and milestones helped focus minds to visualise progress and motivation.
Session 1 – ‘Introduction to actions under the roadmap’ – included overviews from Commission Directorates DG ENV and DG GROW of actions to be taken, incorporating discussion of the main elements of the roadmap, next steps on the process for adoption and an outline of ideas for the organisational structures during the implementation phase.
Session 2 – ‘Recommendations on phasing out animal testing for Human Health Assessments’ – included presentations from ECHA, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and member state representatives the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment and the Swiss Centre for Applied Human Toxicology.
The topic of Session 3 was ‘Feedback from stakeholder involvement’, and included survey results of stakeholder feedback collected by the Commission, as well as a talk on learnings from bilateral discussions and potential impact of transitional initiatives by the Joint Research Centre – European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (JRC – ECVAM).
Session 4 was on ‘Research’ and included a specific presentation by Commission Directorate for Research and Innovation (DG-RTD) on ‘Commission actions on research – How could they support or complement the implementation of the roadmap?’
Session 5 attracted particular attention and interest from many attendees as it was titled ‘Implementation phase, organisational structure, test method development, validation, safe spaces and sandboxing’. The session included representatives from member state competent authorities, industry (for example the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations (EFPIA) and animal protection NGOs). Discussion included test method development with specific regard to the needs for standardised processes of validation and qualification and the differences between them.
The Commission explained how it is working to a ‘three basket’ model for the roadmap to focus on short, medium and long term objectives. Aligned within this are three working groups assigned to human health, the environment and change management.
The topics of safe spaces and sandboxes, as the names suggest, are concepts to allow development and testing of new non-animal methods as reported after the previous roadmap workshop held in October 2024. The concepts would allow stakeholders to trial non-animal methods and gain feedback to build confidence in them. Sandboxes would allow organisations to experiment with new methods without ‘the pressure of immediate regulatory acceptance’.
Session 6 was devoted to ‘Recommendations on phasing out animal testing for the Environmental Safety Assessments’ and was a counterpart to Session 2 which covered human health in a similar way. Session 7 was on the theme of ‘Indicators’ and provided a comprehensive overview of how different measures can be tracked to see progress for the roadmap. Many indicators were presented and broad examples included numbers of new methods implemented and animal test phase-out measures. Session 8 included a closing panel discussion and next steps. Throughout the workshop were many Q&A sessions with the audience and themed panel discussions.
The programme detailing all talks and discussion sessions, alongside recordings and slides from the livestream event are available on the event webpage.
Lush Prize continues its outreach and activities on roadmap progress in the EU, UK and worldwide. Our resources, including roadmap reports, are available on the Lush Prize website.
Spread the word: