An initiative in the US to help bring about a future Transparency Agreement (TA), on the use of animals in research, has been launched.

The United States Animal Research Openness Initiative (USARO) aims to increase the number of US institutions that are engaging in significant public outreach about the importance of animal contributions to science.

The USARO steering committee is now inviting institutions across the US to sign up to a Statement of Intent, which is a declaration of interest in helping ‘to develop a formal U.S. Animal Research Openness Agreement’.

When it is developed this Openness Agreement will have ‘an agreed upon set of commitments that signatories will adhere to to increase openness about animal research’.

The US initiative will eventually lead to one more Transparency Agreement. These now exist in eight countries in Europe (and 10 worldwide).

EARA has supported many of the European TAs – which as reported has recently reached 500 signatory institutions. Read the EARA feature article here.