How can a sociological perspective facilitate the transition from animal research to non-animal, new approach methodologies?
In our new paper, Safer Medicines Trust Research Director, Pandora Pound, explores whether a sociological perspective can help explain why animal research persists within academia despite the availability of scientifically superior, non-animal methodologies (NAMs) – and whether it can expedite a transition away from animal experiments.
Drawing on the theoretical framework of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, she explains how animal research maintains its dominance through ‘symbolic capital’ — the rewards and recognition scientists acquire for publishing papers and obtaining funding — and how shifting to NAMs may place this capital at risk. She highlights the relationship between the animal research field and the ‘field of power’ (government, regulators, funders), suggesting this may be delaying the pace of change, and arguing that we need to be alert to the ways in which current power relationships may be perpetuating access to capital for animal researchers and denying it to NAMs scientists.
The paper emphasises that transitioning to NAMs is not just about having the right technologies available, it’s about tackling the academic system of rewards and disincentives, it’s about examining the balance of power and how it works to promote animal research, and it’s about changing what counts as capital within academia, so that scientists are rewarded, not for publishing ‘high-impact’ papers and acquiring prestigious grants, but for conducting scientifically robust, ethical science that will actually make a difference to people’s lives.
An essential read for those working on the transition. Find it here: https://lnkd.in/efXAXJvz
