University of Copenhagen to cut down on its use of animals in the classroom

Associate Dean for Education at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences Jørgen Kurtzhals has asked all course organisers to cut back on, or completely abolish, the use of animals, writes Videnskab.dk. By autumn 2025, a revised course description will be in place with fewer animals on the curriculum.

What does this mean for the teaching? Will this affect the quality of the students’ education? And will the students miss being able to touch animals? The University Post has spoken to a course organiser and a couple of medical students about the new guidelines.

There are good alternatives

Ole Hartvig Mortensen is responsible for the ‘Stomach, intestines and liver’ course where they have previously both used rats and chickens in the teaching. The University Post caught up with him on the phone to talk about alternative teaching methods, now that live laboratory animals can no longer be used.

»I am absolutely in favour of not using animals unnecessarily. There is no reason for it,« he says, adding that he has already started to phase out the use of animals since he became course manager in 2018.

Something is lost from the fact that there are no variations between the animals.

Ole Hartvig Mortensen, course organiser at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

He explains that they continue to use animals, but to a much lesser extent than before. The animals now used are exclusively animals that had to be put down anyway for other reasons. Many of the experiments that are reviewed in the teaching are shown on video. This means no more animals are to be purchased for this sole purpose:

»Instead of, say, going out and buying rats and only using them to make plasma, we can now buy the plasma from a horse that would have to be put down anyway.«

The question is whether the teaching loses quality when the students cannot touch different laboratory animals.

»Something is lost from the fact that there are no variations between the animals. In the old days, there was this idea that teaching should be as realistic as possible. But we can go a long way simply by talking about the lack of variation in the actual teaching,« says the course manager.

He adds that the new recommendation from UCPH has also pushed him towards phasing out the last animals used for teaching. Finding replacements has been a demanding process, but it’s something he’s been working on for the last five or six years. Removing the last animals from the teaching has not been as difficult for him as it would have been if he had not already started the process.

»The efforts we have made to put this in place have of course cost some time and energy. But if we can use these methods for the next ten years, it will make up for this a lot.«

What do the students think?

A teaching experiment that used earthworms set off a good deal of debate among medical students. It is therefore natural to ask them what they think about the animals being phased out. I catch up with a couple of medical students in the Panum buildings to hear what they have to say.

Noah Thomsen, a fourth-semester student, says that »it’s good to consider whether it is necessary to use animals in these experiments. It is an animal that dies in the process, and you have to assess whether it is worth it in relation to the benefits from the experiment.«

Working with live animals, or with tissue extracted from an animal, this doesn’t give me anything extra

Nora Malene Heil, medical student

Paul Baute, studying on his sixth semester, is pleased with the decision. He says that he has not learned much from the animal experiments, which took place very early in his studies. He adds that he can see the arguments for the experiments:

»I don’t think it makes sense to have an absolute ban. We are a study where it makes sense to relate directly to what it is like to work with tissues and organisms, so I do not have a strong opinion one way or the other.«

Fifth-semester student Nora Malene Heil says she prefers videos to animal testing:

»Working with live animals, or with tissue extracted from an animal, this doesn’t give me anything extra. I get more our of it by seeing it on a video because I can pause it and watch it again.«

Animal-free lessons in the future?

Back at Ole Hartvig Mortensen, I ask whether we are looking into a future where teaching experiments with animals is now history. He replies that he finds it difficult to see a future without any teaching experiment animals whatsoever:

»There are cases where it is simply not possible to carry out the teaching without animals. If you cut it all out, then there are some subjects you simply can’t teach people. It would also be a bit strange to be trained as a doctor without having had a piece of meat between your fingers or have seen any blood.«

Whether the earthworms will also be allowed to survive remains to be seen. The new course descriptions will be published before the autumn semester of 2025.