London – 14th August 2018
56 projects from 17 countries have been shortlisted for the Lush Prize 2018 for their work to end animal testing. The £350,000 annual prize fund will be shared amongst winners from five categories.
The projects work across scientific research; public awareness of animal use in laboratories; training of scientists; and lobbying regulators and legislators to replace animal use with non-animal methods.
The Lush Prize – a collaboration between Lush and Ethical Consumer Research Association – is the largest annual prize fund in the non-animal testing sector.
Now in its seventh year, the prize has already awarded £1.86 million to 93 winners in 28 countries, covering every continent except Antarctica. As a truly global prize, it has supported scientists and activists in countries as diverse as China, Kenya, Iran, Ukraine and India, as well as New Zealand, Brazil, USA and 12 European countries.
The winners of the Lush Prize 2018 will be decided by an expert panel of judges on September 7th in London, but will not be publicly announced until the Lush Prize Awards Ceremony in November.
This year’s prize saw its first entrants from Lebanon, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
Lush Prize spokesperson Craig Redmond said:
“Lush Prize continues to build on its strength of funding projects that work to completely replace animal testing, rather than refine or reduce them (1R rather than 3Rs). Every year we build a growing ‘family’ of Lush Prize winners who promote the Prize to colleagues and this has led to a fantastic number of nominations this year from China, South Korea and Brazil in particular.
“As the Lush Prize shows, not only does public opinion demand that animal testing come to an end, but scientists around the world – whether in Iran, Taiwan or Australia – are working on developing those 21st century models to replace inhumane and unreliable animal research.”
The Lush Prize is a partnership between Lush and Ethical Consumer to support animal-free toxicology and is designed to reward groups or individuals working in the field of cruelty-free scientific research, awareness-raising and lobbying to help bring an end to animal testing.
The £350,000 annual prize fund is the biggest prize in the non-animal testing sector, and the ONLY one to focus solely on the replacement of animal tests. It seeks to focus pressure on safety testing for consumer products in a way that complements projects already addressing the animal testing of medicines.
The Prize categories (http://www.lushprize.org/awards/) are:
Science: for the development of replacement non-animal tests
Training: training researchers in non-animal tests
Public Awareness: public awareness-raising of on-going testing
Lobbying: policy interventions to promote the use of replacements
Young Researcher: to researchers under 35 years old specialising in replacements research
Black Box: for a key breakthrough in human toxicity pathways research
About Ethical Consumer: Ethical Consumer Research Association is a not-for-profit research and consultancy co-operative specialising in independent research into social, animal welfare and environmental issues. www.ethicalconsumer.org
About Lush: Lush is a campaigning inventor, manufacturer and retailer of fresh handmade cosmetics with shops in 48 countries. The Lush Prize is one element in a broader campaign called ‘Fighting Animal Testing’.
Details of last year’s prize winners can be seen at: https://lushprize.org/2017-prize/2017-prize-winners/
Every year, it is estimated that more than 115 million animals are used in testing laboratories around the world.