Cambridge releases statistics for use of animals in research in 2025

The statistics for the University of Cambridge are available on our website as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and openness around the use of animals in research.

This coincides with the publication of the Home Office’s report on the statistics of scientific procedures on living animals in Great Britain in 2025.

The 10 organisations are listed below alongside the total number of procedures they carried out on animals for scientific research in Great Britain in 2025. Of these 1,347,667 procedures, more than 99% were carried out on mice, fish, rats, and birds and 82% were classified as causing pain equivalent to, or less than, an injection. 

This is the eleventh consecutive year that organisations have come together to publicise their collective statistics and examples of their research.

In total, 69 organisations have proactively published their 2025 animal research statistics.

All organisations are committed to the ethical framework called the ‘3Rs’ of replacement, reduction and refinement. This means avoiding or replacing the use of animals where possible, minimising the number of animals used per experiment and optimising the experience of the animals to improve animal welfare. However, as institutions expand and conduct more research, the total number of animals used can rise even if fewer animals are used per study.

All organisations listed are signatories to the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research in the UK, which commits them to being more open about the use of animals in scientific, medical and veterinary research in the UK. More than 130 organisations have signed the Concordat, including UK universities, medical research charities, research funders, learned societies and commercial research organisations.

Hannah Hobson, Head of Communications and Engagement at Understanding Animal Research, said: “Animal research remains a small but vital part of the quest for new medicines, vaccines and treatments for humans and animals. Alternative methods are increasingly being phased in but, until we have sufficient reliable alternatives available, it is important that organisations that use animals in research maintain the public’s trust in them. By providing this level of information about the numbers of animals used, and the experience of those animals, as well as details of the medical breakthroughs that derive from this research, these Concordat on Openness signatories are helping the public to make up their own minds about how they feel about the use of animals in scientific research in Great Britain.”

Professor Jon Simons, Head of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge, said: “While animal use in research remains an important part of advancing scientific discovery and improving our understanding of complex diseases, it is equally important to recognise the need for continued progress in identifying alternative research models. We are committed to advancing new approaches and putting them into practice to complement or replace animal studies with robust and evidence-based alternatives.”

Text adapted from a press release by Understanding Animal Research.

Case study: A new approach to eradicating malaria

Malaria kills approximately 600,000 people and infects 250 million every year globally. Despite decades of research, new therapies are still urgently needed to control or eradicate it. 

Most drugs aim to kill malaria parasites inside the human body - either in the liver or the blood. While these can be effective, antimalarial resistance to the drugs is a growing problem - especially when combined with increasing global warming, which is expanding the areas where malaria occurs. 

Dr Andrew Blagborough’s team at the University of Cambridge is taking a different approach: investigating ways to prevent malaria parasite transmission from infected humans to mosquitos, when the mosquitos bite. 

If enough people could be treated with vaccines or drugs to prevent transmission this way, the life cycle of the malarial parasites could be broken, dramatically diminishing prevalence of malaria in the population. 

While red blood cells and other cell lines can be used to study many aspects of malaria, the transmission from human to mosquito is biologically complex and can only be studied at scale using animal models. Blagborough uses mice and rodent malaria parasites to study how this process could be blocked in human malaria parasites. 

“Mice are essential in studying the transmission of malaria parasites from vertebrates to mosquitoes,” he says. “Our animal model is robust, safe and allows translation to human malaria parasites in an ethical and biologically valid way. Our discoveries are leading to the examination and development of multiple anti-malarial vaccines and drugs that are used in the field.”