The United Kingdom has announced that it will set up a national center to study means of reducing the use of animals in research and improving the animals' lives, but has been hit with allegations that the new institution is little more than a token gesture.

The use of animals in scientific studies is high on Britain's public agenda, thanks in part to the highly visible and sometimes extreme actions of animal rights groups. Responding to those public concerns in 2002, a House of Lords Select Committee report proposed that a new facility to focus on replacing, refining, and reducing the use of animals be established.

On May 21 this year, government ministers announced their intention to set up a National Centre for Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction of Animals in Research under the directorship of Vicky Robinson, currently head of the Medical Research Council's Centre for Best Practice for Animals in Research (CBPAR).

The new center will focus on the "three Rs" —replacing animal use; refining the procedures involved to minimize suffering; and reducing the number of animals used. It will be overseen by an independent board, chaired by Leslie Turnberg, scientific advisor to the Association of Medical Research Charities.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council will double the CBPAR's current budget to £660,000—a figure that could increase further. "I've written a bid for substantial additional funding," which should be decided upon by the end of this summer, Robinson told The Scientist.

She said the new center's work will involve collation and dissemination of information on existing work into the three Rs and ensuring implementation of best practice. She said it would continue to work in a similar vein to CBPAR.

"For example, we've just published some guidelines on the accommodation and care of primates," she said. "Any scientist applying for MRC funding for research on primates will now have to comply with those principles."

Most of the extra money will fund new research. "We need to raise the kudos of this research," she said. "This is going to be about building up this area of research as a discipline."

"Of course, replacement has to be our ultimate goal," said Robinson. "But while there are areas of research where it's impossible not to use animals, I think reduction and refinement are equally important."

Geneticist Robert Combes, of the Fund for Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments, told The Scientist: "We need to interest those scientists who currently have to use animals, and could benefit from not having to do that, to develop alternatives. If this center can do that, it would be fantastic."

However, because the center has been established within the MRC, "there is a perception by the animal rights people that this will be a whitewash," said Combes. "That's a great pity—I hope the center will be able to dispel that and be independent, and cooperate with those of us working in replacement."

The National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) complained that the new center was a public relations exercise that would exclude animal welfare organizations and be overseen by the "pro-vivisection" of the MRC.

"The proposal is a sham and a farce," said Jan Creamer, chief executive of NAVS. "In 2002, the House of Lords Select Committee on Animal Experiments supported a proposal by NAVS to develop a national center for non-animal research. Now the government has hijacked the proposal—but made it a center which will explore both animal and non-animal research."

The Dr Hadwen Trust for Humanity in Research called the center "little more than a fig leaf." The proposal "lacks vision and genuine commitment," said Gill Langley, scientific advisor to the trust. "The proposed center will be overstretched and underfunded in trying to tackle all the three Rs. Instead it should be focusing on the only permanent solution to the suffering of animals in laboratories—the replacement of animal experiments."

According to Home Office data, the number of animal experiments in the United Kingdom has halved since the 1970s, but there has been a small increase recently, "almost entirely as the result of the use of genetically modified animals," Robinson told The Scientist.

Experiments on genetic modification are hard to replace, Combes admitted. But "a lot of this work is being done because it is possible, rather than because it really is good-quality science," he said.

Clinical geneticist John Burn, of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Newcastle, disagreed. "If you have an extremely complex organ system in the mammal, being put together by the expression of what might be thousands of genes, you can't always work it out with a pencil," he told The Scientist. "There are times when you actually have to see what happens when two genes interact. The opportunity to be able to breed mice with specific genes working or not working is irresistible to help sort this out."