The ARRIVE guidelines – a checklist of information that should be included in all publications that describe experiments involving animals – are designed to promote transparent and accurate reporting, addressing increasing concern from researchers, funders and policy makers around the irreproducibility of animal research.
Despite the guidelines’ widespread endorsement since their original 2010 publication (by over 1,000 journals, universities, learned societies and major funders), studies show that reporting of important items found in them, including measures to reduce subjective bias of studies and improve their reliability, is still very often missing from animal research publications. These findings have driven a recent, thorough revision of the guidelines, and the development of a variety of resources designed to help put them into practice.
As part of this programme, these Action Plans lay out discrete activities that various organisations can undertake to implement the guidelines in their policies and procedures. Three action plans are available, for:
The Action Plans are divided into three sequential levels, with an increasing expectation of compliance with the guidelines at each. Many organisations will already be at Level 1 and should relatively quickly be able to move on to more active use of the guidelines.
They are available via the ARRIVE guidelines website. If you have questions about their use, suggestions for additional activities to help with ARRIVE implementation, or would like any more information, please get in touch at arrive@nc3rs.org.uk.