The Flemish research funding agency “Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek” (FWO) and the “Flanders Research Information Space” (FRIS) have launched a strategic collaboration with RE-Place, a dedicated initiative that promotes alternatives to animal testing and is coordinated by Sciensano and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). This new partnership aims to expand the RE-Place database withavailable expertise on alternative methods used in publicly funded research in Flanders. This will make this knowledge more accessible to the wider scientific community. By joining forces, the organizations are promoting the use of animal-free methods for research where scientifically feasible.


A joint effort for greater transparency in research

The collaboration builds on the Flemish government's 2021 Action Plan for the Reduction of Animal Testing, in which various organizations committed to contributing to that goal through 33 concrete actions.The FWO and RE-Place then initiated discussions with the aim of identifying expertise on alternatives to animal testing at research centers, which resulted in the involvement of FRIS. The FRIS portal provides an overview of publicly funded research in Flanders.

“ The collaboration with the FWO and FRIS is an important milestone in our mission to promote animal-free innovation,“ say Birgit Mertens (Sciensano) and Vera Rogiers (VUB), the coordinators of the RE-Place project. ”It opens the door to a more in-depth identification of animal-free research funded in Belgium."

Hans Willems (FWO) says: “The legislator is unequivocal: animal testing is only permitted when no equivalent alternative method is available. Society's expectation of a structural reduction in animal testing therefore requires easy access to alternative testing strategies. This initiative aims to actively support this within the academic landscape in Flanders.”


Successful Pilot forms the basis for annual consultations

Following a successful pilot mailing, subsidized researchers will now be contacted twice: at the start of their project to raise awareness of animal-free methods, and at the end to encourage them to submit the methods developed during the project to the RE-Place database.

Through this joint effort, RE-Place, the FWO, and FRIS are working together to increase the visibility and accessibility of knowledge about alternative methods to animal testing in Belgium — with the ultimate goal of accelerating the implementation of new animal-free techniques.

Future perspectives

Since RE-Place is a joint initiative of the Flemish and Brussels regions, the ambition is to further expand this collaboration in the future to other financing organizations in Brussels, and possibly also to Wallonia.

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