Perm
State Pharmaceutical Academy
On 4 February 2010, the university management of the State Pharmaceutical Academy in Perm signed a contract with the International Network for Humane Education InterNICHE. According to the contract, InterNICHE will provide the university with multimedia programmes. In return, the academy undertakes in future to refrain from all animal experiments and exercises on animals killed specifically for this purpose in its teaching programmes. This makes the Academy in Perm the tenth Russian university to replace animal use in higher education with humane teaching methods.
In Russia, InterNICHE and the Russian animal rights organisation VITA have been achieving great successes for years. In 2006, the Velikie Luki Faculty of Veterinary Medicine was not only a pioneer for humane studies in Russia, but also became a real model university. Not only was the entire curriculum designed to be animal-free, but the university management also actively promotes it through the media and takes care of the stray animal problem on site.
In order to enhance its reputation in the public eye and with other universities with regard to the promotion of animal-friendly study programmes, the university signed a written agreement with Doctors Against Animal Experiments, InterNICHE and VITA in April 2009. This includes co-operation at congresses and in the media.
While at most other Russian universities the agreements concerned the replacement of animal use in individual courses and departments, in Perm the entire university and all its departments switched to humane eductaion. This change was initiated by the two animal rights organisations "ZZZ" and "Snow Leopard" in Perm. Several lectures and presentations by Alexey Skrobanskiy, a representative of VITA and InterNICHE Russia, finally convinced the university management.
Although the Pharmaceutical Academy in Perm has hardly carried out any animal experiments recently due to a lack of funds, the assurance that it will refrain from animal use in future sends a clear signal to other Russian universities. Doctors Against Animal Experiments provided financial support for the project, in particular for Alexey Skrobanskiy's lecture tour.
Perm Pharmaceudical Academy