3Rs Award

ELIGIBILITY

• Applicants must be:
  • Academic or general staff holding full-time or fractional appointments at UNE (including adjunct, and honorary staff) at the time of the award, or
  • Postgraduate and/or honours students enrolled on a full-time or part-time basis at the time of the award.
• An Eligible external organisation where applications are assessed by the UNE AEC.
• The application must describe methods that show results that either replace, reduce or refine the use of sentient animals in research or teaching.
• If animal use occurred, the work must have been conducted under a UNE Animal Ethics Committee approval, which was active at any time between 1st January 2021 and 1st November 2024.
• A substantial component of the work must have been conducted by
  • staff or students of UNE whose nominated AEC is UNE, or,
  • an eligible external organisation whose nominated AEC is UNE.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Applications that show one or more of the following will be viewed favourably:-

• Demonstrates great commitment to 3Rs principle
• Demonstrates innovative implementation of 3Rs principles
• Will help to promote awareness of 3Rs principles at UNE
• Advancement of an area of research
• Development of a novel procedure that replaces, reduces or refines the use of animals
• Improvement or formal validation of an existing non-animal procedure
• Replacing use of sentient animal species with non-sentient species
• Dissemination of the 3Rs implications to scientific colleagues
• Evidence of recent peer-reviewed papers, either, published, submitted or in preparation.
• A clear indication of the extent to which the work has already replaced animal-based procedures or may be possible in the future.

JUDGING

The Award is made by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) on the recommendation of a panel with appropriate expertise.

The AEC may also make formal commendations to runners up for the award as it deems appropriate.

The University reserves the right not to proceed with the award.

The decision of the judging panel shall be final. The University reserves the right not to proceed with the award.

VALUE

The prize will consist of a certificate and $2000 deposit into the successful applicant’s cost centre/project code. The prize is to be used by the applicant to enhance research outcomes and be consistent with UNE’s commitment to the 3Rs principles (for example improving environmental enrichment, conference travel, publishing costs, development of in vitro models).

It is expected that the funding will be expended within 12 months of award. Upon expenditure of the award, the holder will provide a maximum two-page report to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), documenting how the award was used, the benefits derived and a brief summary of the research outcomes.