Transforming Culture: a Culture of Care in Animal Research.

The EU adopted Directive 2010/63/EU, thereby creating an instrument for legally implementing effective measures to regulate animal experimentation. In this framework, the 3Rs principle for replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal experiments proposed by Russell and Burch (1959) is of paramount importance. The highest goal of the 3Rs can be understood as a Culture of Care (CoC), entailing complete renunciation of sentient beings as test subjects. The implementation of a CoC is explicitly mentioned in Recital 31 of the EU-Directive. This article elaborates on historical underpinnings of the CoC concept and uses qualitative social research to trace its characteristics. Data were based on non-standardized survey procedures (topic-oriented, guideline-based expert interviews) and were collected at the management, scientific, supervisory and care levels in relation to animal experimentation. The goal of the qualitative approach is to understand contexts, conditions, strategies, and consequences of the CoC and depict them as a theoretical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]