Applications

The course aims to provide the tools for animal facility staff to understand and being able to advice on laboratory animal genetics taking the rodents as teaching models. As lab animal technical staff and veterinarians play a central role supporting good practice and in many cases advising on good scientific research, this training event will very much contribute to improving such provision. The knowledge and training gained in the winter school will be taken away by participants and applied in each and every scientific establishment where they work, on a daily basis. In addition, many will be actively seeking opportunities to publish in scientific journals and hence the knowledge gained in the course will percolate into such publications in one way or another. There are not many opportunities for Designated Veterinarians to train on different aspects of their role in Europe. There are just five residency programmes in Europe (http://eslav-eclam.org/eclam/training/) compared to 47 in the United States (https://www.aclam.org/education-and-training/training-programs). The European Society of Laboratory Animal Veterinarians (ESLAV) and The European College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ECLAM) are setting different forms of training and trying to cover that gap. This Winter School is one of such initiatives. Also, there are no training opportunities for laboratory animal veterinarians in Ireland. This initiative will not only be open to veterinarians but to scientists and technical staff working with animals.

The 1st Technicians Theoretical Practical Training Course for the Care and Handling of Animal Models and the 6th RedCICUALES Seminar-Workshop aim to provide training in Spanish to Colombian laboratory animals technicians who do not have official training in the topic. Since 2010 the RedCICUALES and the Association ACCBAL have been organizing workshops and congresses to train Colombian community users of lab animals. Nevertheless, a lack of official training focused on the culture of care and training of lab animal technicians is evident in the country.