The I3R Working Party was set up in 2000 to encourage the development of best practice in the provision and retrieval of information on alternatives to animals in pharmaceutical R&D with special reference to Refinement, Reduction and Replacement (3Rs).
It developed as a centre of expertise on 3Rs information through:
Following publication of the 'Best Practice' guide in 2001, we approached the major database producers. Much success was acheived in obtaining changes to journal coverage and database indexing, particularly with Embase and Chemical Abstracts.
The final meeting of the Working Party was held in February 2002 and it was agreed that the objective had been achieved. Other desirable changes had been identified: persuading authors to use appropriate 3Rs keywords; and getting these keywords routinely used by publishers, but these were accepted as beyond the practical scope of the Working Party.
Over the next four months the revised sections of the ‘Guide’ were finalised to reflect improvements in the databases journal coverage and indexing and an updated 2nd edition was published in July 2002, which is available on our Publications page. A copy of the report which describes the actions of the Working Party can be downloaded
Formed in 1993 to document both hard copy and on-line sources of information relevant to formulation scientists. Sources include pharmacopoeias, drug and excipient directories and textbooks. On-line bibliographic databases were assessed on journal selection and depth of indexing for pharmacy and formulation subject areas. The Working Party published it's findings and recommendations as a report in 1994. Recommendations in the report were actively taken up by on-line vendors, eg by Elsevier/Embase to improve database content and searching features. The report is still a useful reference although it lacks any web based sources. A copy is available on our Publications page.