Revision of the ARRIVE guidelines
At a glance
R
- Reduction
Overview
Background
In 2010, the NC3Rs developed the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines, a 20-item checklist designed to improve the reporting of research using animals. The guidelines were originally published in PLOS Biology and other journals, and have been endorsed by many research-intensive universities, major research funders, and over 1,000 journals worldwide (for a full list see our ARRIVE supporters page).
Despite growing levels of support for the ARRIVE guidelines throughout the scientific community over recent years, there was limited evidence of improvement in the quality of reporting in animal research publications.
We therefore convened an international working group to review the ARRIVE guidelines and developed a strategy to accelerate their uptake (published in BMJ Open Science). The aim was to ensure that the guidelines continue to provide appropriate support for different stakeholders to improve the reporting of animal experiments in scientific publications.
Introducing ARRIVE 2.0
The revised ARRIVE guidelines – ARRIVE 2.0 – and their Explanation & Elaboration were published in PLOS Biology in 2020.
More information about the ARRIVE guidelines, including resources and information on how journals, funders, institutions and other organisations can use and promote the guidelines, is available via the new dedicated ARRIVE website.
The revision work has focused on three main areas:
1. Prioritisation of the ARRIVE items
The 21 items in the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 have been organised into two sets representing different levels of priority; the “ARRIVE Essential 10” describes information that is the basic minimum to include in a manuscript, as without this information reviewers and readers cannot confidently assess the reliability of the findings presented. These are the most important items on which initial efforts should focus. In their initial form, the ARRIVE guidelines 2010 did not lend themselves easily to retrospective evaluation. Prioritising a subset of items provides more manageable metrics for journals, institutions or researchers to assess reporting progress.
2. Publication of an Explanation and Elaboration (E&E) document
We have developed an E&E document to explain the rationale behind each item in the guidelines, to clarify key concepts and to provide illustrative examples from the literature. This information has also been made easily accessible via the ARRIVE website: www.ARRIVEguidelines.org/arrive-guidelines.
3. Revision of specific items
We have reviewed specific items to ensure that the guidance provided is in line with the current best evidence. We have improved clarity and the logical flow of information within the guidelines. The revision also ensures that the guidelines are relevant to both exploratory and confirmatory in vivo research.
Evidence used to inform this work
A number of recent projects have assessed the impact of the ARRIVE guidelines. The studies described below were used to develop our strategy.
IICARus (A randomised controlled trial of an Intervention to Improve Compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines)
With joint funding from the MRC, BBSRC, Wellcome Trust and the NC3Rs, the CAMARADES group carried out a randomised controlled trial in the journal PLOS ONE, assessing whether full compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines is improved by mandating the completion of a checklist with the submission of a research paper. As part of this, the ARRIVE guidelines were operationalised into a list of over 100 specific questions, and the compliance rate for each item of the ARRIVE guidelines was assessed. Crowdsourcing was used to recruit reviewers who assessed the quality of reporting in these manuscripts. Although the study has now finished, the online training module is still available and is a great resource for training in high quality reporting of animal research.
The ARRIVE guidelines survey
The ARRIVE guidelines are aimed primarily at scientists writing up their research for publication and those who are involved in peer review. We have conducted a survey of these individuals to explore current practice in the design, conduct, reporting and reviewing of animal experiments, and to identify the reasons for good or bad compliance with any of the 20 items of the guidelines.
Journal editor interviews
We have also conducted semi-structured interviews with journal editors to collect qualitative information about the use of reporting guidelines in editorial processes. A number of journals were selected with varying levels of endorsement of the ARRIVE guidelines, and a range of strategies to achieve high standards of reporting.
Publications
- Percie du Sert N et al. (2020). The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research. PLoS Biol 18(7): e3000410. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000410
- Percie du Sert N et al. (2020). Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0. PLoS Biol 18(7): e3000411. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000411
- Hair K et al. (2019). A randomised controlled trial of an Intervention to Improve Compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines (IICARus). Res Integr Peer Rev 4:12. doi: 10.1186/s41073-019-0069-3
- Percie du Sert N et al. (2018). Revision of the ARRIVE guidelines: rationale and scope. BMJ Open Sci 2(1). doi: 10.1136/bmjos-2018-000002
Working Group
|
Name |
Affiliation |
|---|---|
|
Professor Stephen Holgate (Chair) |
University of Southampton, UK |
|
Professor Amrita Ahluwalia |
Queen Mary University of London, UK |
|
Dr Sabina Alam |
F1000 Research, UK |
|
Professor Doug Altman* |
University of Oxford, UK |
|
Dr Marc Avey |
ICF, Canada |
|
Ms Monya Baker |
Nature, US |
|
Professor Bill Browne |
University of Bristol, UK |
|
Dr Alejandra Clark |
PLOS ONE, UK |
|
Professor Innes Cuthill |
University of Bristol, UK |
|
Professor Ulrich Dirnagl |
QUEST – Center for Transforming Biomedical Research, Berlin Institute of Health, Germany |
|
Dr Mike Emerson |
Imperial College London, UK |
|
Professor Paul Garner |
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK |
|
Professor David Howells |
University of Tasmania, Australia |
| Dr Viki Hurst | NC3Rs, UK |
|
Dr Natasha Karp |
Astrazeneca, UK |
|
Dr Catriona Maccallum |
Hindawi, UK |
|
Professor Malcolm Macleod |
University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Dr Nathalie Percie du Sert | NC3Rs, UK |
|
Professor Ole Petersen |
Cardiff University, UK |
|
Dr Frances Rawle |
Medical Research Council, UK |
|
Dr Penny Reynolds |
University of Florida, USA |
|
Dr Kieron Rooney |
University of Sydney, Australia |
|
Dr Emily Sena |
University of Edinburgh, UK |
|
Dr Shai Silberberg |
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, USA (role is to provide expertise and not to represent the opinion of the entire NIH) |
|
Dr Thomas Steckler |
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV / Johnson & Johnson, Belgium |
|
Professor Hanno Würbel |
University of Bern, Switzerland |
* Professor Doug Altman passed away on 3 June 2018. As one of the co-authors of the ARRIVE guidelines and an active member of the working group to revise them, Doug made instrumental contributions to the work of the NC3Rs. He will be sorely missed.