The use of animals in teaching in higher education has become increasingly controversial and perhaps it is time to consider replacing traditional animal labs with different alternative methods.

In Article 25 of the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes, the Council of Europe states that ‘procedures carried out for the purpose of education, training or further training of professionals shall be restricted to those absolutely necessary for the purpose of the education or training concerned and shall be permitted only if their objective cannot be achieved by comparably effective audiovisual or any other suitable method.’

Teachers have an important role to play in defining the teaching and learning objectives of classes which use animals. Computer-based simulations of many animal labs are now widely available, which may meet many of the learning objectives. Nevertheless, the quality of these programs varies considerably and it is important for teachers to be provided with as much information about them as possible if they are to be persuaded to use them.

One project which may assis in this process is the European Resource Centre for Alternatives to using animals in higher education (EURCA) The idea first arose in 1998, during a workshop on ‘Alternatives to the use of animals in higher education sponsored by ‘ECVAM’ (The European Centre for the Validation of Alternatives in Medicine).

EURCA actively promotes the use of alternatives to using animals in higher education, and provides a mechanism for effective dissemination of useful information about alternatives. These objectives are achieved by establishing a Resource Centre – a collection of electronic alternatives – and taking this to relevant scientific meetings in Europe where it would function as a drop-in advice centre for teachers; developing a website (http://www.eurca.org) with an information-rich (product information, independent (commissioned) reviews, users comments, links to evaluative studies) database of alternatives, creating a network of academic teachers who actively use alternatives to take responsability for disseminating information about alternatives to other teachers in the European community.