News

Published: 12 November 2025

This year represents 20 years since the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) first began. Dr Tamara Zietek and Dr Katy Taylor represented the ECEAE at the celebration in Brussels.

The EPAA is a unique partnership between the European Commission and industry created to facilitate closer working together to replace, reduce and refine animal experiments. Nothing quite like it exists in the world. Although the ECEAE wants to see an end to all animal experiments, we recognise the work that the EPAA has done.

For the last 20 years the partnership has been behind projects that have helped to replace and reduce animal testing for vaccines, skin sensitisation and other regulatory toxicity tests.

The EPAA is formed of 5 Directorates-General of the European Commission, 41 companies, and 10 European industry federations, representing 9 industrial sectors. There is a mirror group made up of individual representatives of civil society, academia and animal welfare groups. It acts as a consultation forum in an advisory capacity to the steering committee for the implementation of the action programme and adds a broader societal perspective to EPAA’s work. The ECEAE has had a representative on the mirror group since the start.

The 2025 annual conference marked 20 years of the EPAA. This year’s conference was a milestone event bringing together key stakeholders from the EU institutions, industry, academia, NGOs and international organisations. As well as reflecting on their achievements it also focussed on the future. Much of the focus of the event was on how the EPAA and its stakeholders could support the implementation of the European Commission's roadmap towards phasing out animal testing in chemical safety assessments.

The ECEAE representatives participated in the conference, encouraging the EPAA to ensure the roadmap was supported as much as possible by the European institutions. We were pleased to hear that the European Chemicals Agency is preparing to set up a special group to help with the implementation of non-animal methods at the Agency which will include member states and stakeholders. It has tentatively been called the Collaborative Platform on Alternatives to Animal testing (CPAAT). We are calling for such a platform to be made mandatory in the REACH legislation.

From left: Dr Katy Taylor (ECEAE Consultant), Dr Gavin Maxwell (Unilever), and Dr Tamara Zietek (ECEAE Chair).