News from the Canadian Transparency Agreement (TA) Working Group

Increased openness about the ethical use of animals in research and its benefits to society has been a global priority in the past ten years in order to gain public trust and maintain government support. Furthermore, the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), through the January 2024 publication of their guidelines on ‘’Transparency in animal-based science’’, encourages institutions to develop a formal transparency initiative amongst themselves, similar to transparency agreements seen in other research-intensive countries such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, France, Australia, and New Zealand. That is why, in the past year, a Canadian transparency working group has been created under the leadership of the Canadian Association for Laboratory Animal Medicine (CALAM) with representatives from the Alliance of Canadian Comprehensive Research Universities (ACCRU), the U15 Canada, the Canadian Association for laboratory Animal Science (CALAS), the Canadian research and laboratory animal community and in partnership with the European Animal Research Association (EARA). In early 2025, this working group created and proposed a national transparency agreement with commitments that has been sent as a survey for comments to all CCAC’s member institutions. The results of this survey show positive support to the launch of a Transparency Agreement composed of 4 main commitments.

Lucie C. Côté, DVM, MBA
President of the Canadian Association for Laboratory Animal Medicine (CALAM)
Director, Animal Resources Division
Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (The Institute)
Lucie.cote@muhc.mcgill.ca