10th August 2020

A new report from the Technician Commitment and partners highlights the impact of COVID-19 on the technical community in higher education and research.

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A collaborative team consisting of the Technician Commitment, Science Council, Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Biology, Royal Society of Chemistry, Wellcome and the Research England funded Midlands Innovation TALENT programme undertook a national survey in order to understand the impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) on the technical workforce in higher education and research. Over 1300 responses were collected from technicians across 99 universities and research institutes from all four nations of the UK.

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The resulting report, ‘COVID19: The Impact on Technicians in UK Higher Education & Research’ offers unprecedented insight into the impact of the pandemic on working practices for technicians and shines a light on technical contributions at an extraordinary time.

29th July 2020

The IAT Equality and Diversity Group have released an Equality and Diversity Update.  To view and download a copy CLICK HERE.

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For move information on the IAT Equality and Diversity Group and useful resources CLICK HERE.

16th July 2020

Today (Thursday, 16 July 2020) the government has released its annual statistics on the number of animals used in scientific, medical and veterinary research in 2019. The figures show that 3,401,517 procedures were carried out in Great Britain in 2019, 3% fewer than in 2018, and the lowest number since 2007.

Nearly half of these procedures were carried out by ten organisations.

July 2020

This is a call for all you budding photographers that may have or are going to take some great industry related pictures... Here at the IAT Comms Group we are always in need of quality pictures to use in the IAT’s promotional campaigns.

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We are looking for photographs of research animals, with or without a member of staff. If a member of staff is included in the photo, the staff member must be wearing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

Please ensure that you have permission from your employer to take and publish any pictures you intend to submit.

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The photos you supply will potentially be used in current and future promotional campaigns. . In order for us to be able to use them, the image requirements are:

- Orientation must be portrait

- A clear space around the picture would be a preference to enable cropping and trimming of all four edges

- File format needs to be .jpg

- Minimum file size of 2Mb but the larger the better

- Minimum picture resolution 300dpi (preferably 600dpi)

For the chance to have your pictures published, used in the IAT branding and promotional materials send your pictures to: sylvia.mehigan@ucd.ie

6th July 2020

Professionals from the UK’s laboratory animal community have produced advice to help staff working under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) with their plans for a return to a more normal level of work after the easing of the COVID-19 lockdown rules. This document has the support of  LASA, LAVA and IAT.  

April 2020

Since the 11th of March, when WHO declared Covid-19 had become a pandemic and government
advice led to a huge impact on businesses and personal lives. Businesses commenced lockdown
measures and implemented pandemic contingency plans. Animal Techs and others associated with
the industry were on the frontline continuing to provide excellent standards of care and welfare for
our animals used in scientific research.

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The IAT have produced a leaflet on Coping with change and a future of hope. Download your copy from the link above

21st May 2020

The RSB has launched a free, innovative new library of policy resources for the biosciences, providing easy search and access to more than 800 published documents.

The RSB Policy Resource Library provides free, unrestricted access to bioscience policy statements, briefings, comments, consultation responses reviews and more, published by the RSB and Member Organisations.

The Library is intended to be a first port of call for anyone wishing to research bioscience and education policy work published by specialist and learned societies, and is the result of a multi-year design and development project run in-house by the policy team at the RSB. 

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The library can be accessed online through the RSB's mySociety portal and is available to members and non-members.

12th May 2020

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27th April 2020

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April 2020

As an Animal Technologist undertaking euthanasia is usually the result of a scientific programmeof work finishing, or to alleviate, any unnecessary pain and suffering to protected animals.
Euthanising animals is an accepted undertaking of an Animal Tech’s job and the emotional impact should not be underestimated.

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The IAT have produced a leaflet on dealing with the emotional impact of Euthanasia. Download your copy from the link above