The Netherlands reverses plan to redirect the primate center’s entire subsidy to animal-free methods
The Netherlands reverses plan to redirect the primate center’s entire subsidy to animal-free methods
The Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC) will again be able to allocate its institutional subsidy according to scientific need. The share devoted to animal-free methods will increase from 17% to 30% by 2030.
On 3 July, Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science Rianne Letschert set out the new funding arrangements for BPRC in a letter to parliament. In 2025, parliament planned to redirect the center’s entire institutional subsidy to animal-free methods by 2030. This made it difficult for the center to plan long-term projects and prepare new applications.
The House of Representatives reversed the plan in March, and the Senate confirmed the decision on 30 June. BPRC can now allocate the subsidy according to scientific need and the availability of a suitable animal-free method for the specific task. The government has limited the number of experiments involving primates to 120–150 per year.
The center must increase the share of its institutional subsidy allocated to developing and validating animal-free methods from 17% to 30% by 2030. The ministry requires BPRC to collaborate with developers of these methods and share data with them.
BPRC houses approximately one thousand macaques. It is one of two research organizations in the European Union that maintains its own primate breeding colony. The ministry links the center’s work to research on infections and brain diseases, as well as drug development.
On 2 September, The Transmitter reported that parliament would discuss animal research again in the autumn and could propose changes to the research budget. The center’s director, Merel Langelaar, described how BPRC depends on these decisions:
“We are now entirely dependent on politics and elections.”
The government plans to conduct an independent assessment in 2030 to determine whether the number of experiments can be reduced further.