Transition Animal-Free Innovation (TPI)

In 2017, the Dutch government launched the Transition Animal-Free Innovation (TPI) program. With this program, the government wants to make research into the safety of medicines and chemicals safer, without using laboratory animals.

TPI’s ambition is clear: the Netherlands must become a pioneer in the development of animal-free innovations. This fits in seamlessly with our goals. That is why we have been affiliated with this unique partnership since the beginning of the process. We are proud to participate in discussions and decisions about the transition to a world without laboratory animals.

Devising solutions with Helpathons

A Helpathon is a multi-day meeting. The name Helpathon is derived from hackathon and aims to let people come up with innovative solutions together around social themes. Since 2018, the TPI Helpathon team has organised various Helpathons annually around the theme of ‘animal-free research’. In this way, various academics have been challenged and supported to conduct their research without animal testing. We also regularly attend these Helpathons to contribute our knowledge and our network.

The initiative is fully focused on devising animal-free solutions and helps to further develop existing animal-free initiatives into a concrete policy strategy for animal-free innovations.

It is not only us and scientists who participate in a Helpathon. Because out-of-the-box thinking is important, patients, citizens, healthcare professionals, financiers and policymakers also participate in the initiative.

Lobbying and campaigning

In the past, we regularly demonstrated at the Binnenhof in The Hague to draw attention to animal testing. Nowadays, we approach it differently: we have gone from a counter-movement to a pro-movement. Due to this more positive approach, we are now a serious discussion partner for governments and politicians.

But of course, all this does not mean that we no longer lobby for a reduction in animal testing. Three examples:

• In 2021, it was announced that animal testing for cosmetic products may be allowed again in Europe. This is due to a loophole in the European cosmetics law. Of course, we do not agree with this! That is why we started a European Citizens’ Initiative in 2021 and 2022 together with hundreds of other cosmetics brands and animal welfare organizations to prevent this. The result: more than 1 million European signatures!
• At the end of 2021, the coalition agreement for the coming years was published. Remarkably enough, the word ‘test animal’ did not appear once in the document. And that while the agreement contains more than 21,000 words! It is clear that laboratory animals in the Netherlands do not receive the attention they deserve.We have therefore called on the government to increase the budget for animal-free research to 5 million per year in the coming years.
• Talk is cheap. The response of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality to our call to increase the budget for animal-free research (see previous bullet point) seems nice, but there are mainly too many promises and too little done. That is why we, together with our animal-free scientists, call on the government to really commit to animal-free research with a new petition: Animal testing is no longer appropriate for this time.

Proefdiervrij de Podcast & Frank Wassenberg

In episode 7 of Proefdiervrij de Podcast: We are further along than you think, we invited Frank Wassenberg of the Dutch Party for the Animals to look ahead to a future without laboratory animals.

Thanks to his experience as a biologist and as a former employee of Proefdiervrij, Frank knows exactly what alternatives there are and what is needed to help laboratory animals out of the world. In this episode of our podcast, Frank tells us how he is going to make an animal test-free future a reality from the political arena.