On Monday, 3rd December 2018, UAR hosted the fifth annual Openness Awards and 82nd Stephen Paget Memorial Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians in London.

Dr John Landers presented the Internal or Sector Engagement Award to GSK for developing a live and interactive virtual lab tour for its employees. Animal facilities were fitted with WiFi so technicians can move around the labs using a smartphone to film their workplace and transmit images of their facilities and themselves to people outside the facility via Skype. This interactive tour means viewers have the opportunity to ask technicians questions and direct the technicians to show them items of interest.

Professor Tilli Tansey presented the Public Engagement Activity Award to the MRC’s Brain Network Dynamics Unit for its Parkinson’s Open Day. People affected by Parkinson’s disease (patients, carers, family, and other lay members of the Oxford and Banbury groups of the charity Parkinson’s UK) were given the opportunity to learn more about the Unit’s research on causes and treatment. Imperial College London was highly commended for its animal research facilities Google Expedition.

Professor John O’Keefe presented the Media Engagement or Media Stories Award to the Royal Veterinary College for sharing its Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy dog research with the media. The University of Edinburgh was highly commended for producing a media package about its gene-edited pigs.

Lastly, Professor Max Headley presented the Website or Use of New Media Award to MND Association for providing its readers with a wealth of information online about how and why the organisation uses animals in research.

Following the awards Professor John O’Keefe, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, UCL, Principal Research Fellow of the Wellcome Trust, and 2014 Nobel Prize laureate for Physiology or Medicine, delivered the 82nd Stephen Paget Memorial Lecture, “What rodents have taught us about spatial cognition and memory”.

To coincide with the event, UAR published the fourth annual Concordat report, which focuses on the outcomes of the Concordat since its launch, four and a half years ago.