Presentation
The Ethics Committee on Animal Experiments (CEEA) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has been authorised by the Government of Catalonia (the competent authority) as a designated body for performing the assessment and retrospective evaluation of animal experimentation projects. The status of the CEEA as a designated body (OH-CEEA-UAB) is established in File OH/003/2016 of the Department of Territory and Sustainability.
This body is governed by its own regulations, approved on 23 March 2017 by the Governing Council, and by Royal Decree 53/2013, of 1 February, and it applies the fees approved by the Board of Trustees for providing its services.
Before they may be implemented, animal experimentation projects must first be assessed by an animal experimentation committee (CEA) and then by a designated body. The OH-CEEA-UAB may assess projects that have previously been assessed by the CEEA of the UAB, or by other committees. All researchers are free to submit their projects to any designated body.
The OH-CEEA-UAB assesses each project as set out in Article 34 of Royal Decree 53/2013, and then reports back to the applicant.
The OH-CEEA-UAB performs a retrospective evaluation of projects that involve severe or moderate procedures (if this is stipulated in the authorisation), and whenever this has been deemed necessary based on the project assessment. For these retrospective evaluations, researchers have to submit the documents compiled during the research, so that the designated body can evaluate the following:
- whether the objectives of the project have been achieved,
- animal suffering,
- numbers and species used,
- severity,
- improvement through replacement, reduction and refinement.
The OH-CEEA-UAB reports on its activities once a year to the competent authority: the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat). Its report includes all the projects it has assessed or retrospectively evaluated. All this documentation remains at the disposal of the competent authority for three years.