Lush Prize announces new lineup for 2022 judging panel
3 new judges join Global panel of experts rewarding those seeking an end to animal testing
Now in its tenth year, The Lush Prize has grown to become the largest global awards programme to recognise scientists and campaigners working to replace animals in chemical safety testing. A biannual prize of £250,000, it has rewarded more than £2 million to support animal-free testing and campaigns around the world.
Judging the applications is a panel of expert scientists and campaigners from eight countries, who are chosen from a wide spectrum of people including independent scientists, prominent activists, experts from within industry and Animal Welfare NGOs, and politicians, Lush Staff, Lush Customers and a previous Young Researcher Award winner.
This year the Lush Prize welcomes 3 new judges, from three different countries, onto the panel … introducing:
a Co-founder and Director of Animal Alliance Asia – building a movement that’s more inclusive, effective and sustainable in Asia by supporting, training and mentoring advocates and organisations across the region and forming a regional coalition. Through AAA, she launched Animal Advocacy Conference Asia, the first conference by, and for, animal justice advocates in Asia. AAA has also launched the Animal Advocacy Academy in five languages.
with a B.Sc (Hons) in Marine Biology and a PhD in environmental toxicology, after her studies Jen worked as an environmental toxicologist on the preparation of registration dossiers requiring chemical safety assessments in view of the EU REACH regulation.In January 2019, she started her current position with Animal Rights, an animal protection group active in the Netherlands and Belgium. She coordinates the campaigns ‘Replace Animal Testing’ and ‘Animal Free Science’ for Animal Rights in Belgium.
a computational chemist, Kamel is this year’s Young Researcher Judge, the category he won a prize for in 2017.
He is currently leading the computational chemistry efforts at the NTP Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM) within the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Dr Mansouri is working on several projects involving QSAR modelling, cheminformatics and computational toxicology.
Animal testing was what first got me thinking about animal injustice and that’s how I started my journey as an animal advocate. So, I’m so excited and honoured to be on the judging panel this year! I believe LUSH has contributed tremendously to awareness raising and normalising discussion around animal testing.
Lush Prize is also delighted to welcome back five distinguished scientists and campaigners who have served in previous years:
Professor Lisbeth Knudsen – Professor of Toxicology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Troy Seidle – Director of Research & Toxicology for Humane Society International (Canada)
Dr Gilly Stoddart – Associate Director of the PETA International Science Consortium (UK)
Kristie Sullivan – Vice President of Research Policy at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (USA)
Professor Thales Tréz – Biologist and professor at the Institute of Science and Technology (Alfenas Federal University) in Brazil
Your chance to be involved!
During each prize year one Lush customer and one staff member is placed alongside the rest of the panel so they can represent the views of the wider public. Making sure that everyone is represented is important – after all public pressure was vital in securing non-animal testing policies in the European Parliament. In fact, it has been key to all the improvements to animal welfare throughout the ages, so guest members of the judging panel are granted the same voting rights as the experts.
Now is your chance to be part of this vitally important process, which is helping to protect animals internationally! Email applications to [email protected] with the subject ‘Customer judge’ by 27th May 2022. Find out more here
NOTES TO EDITORS
PRESS ENQUIRIES
Lush Prize was founded in 2012 in the UK with a goal of helping to bring forward the date when no further product safety testing on animals was required. It is a collaboration between the campaigning cosmetics company Lush and the campaigning research group Ethical Consumer.
The £250,000 prize fund is the biggest prize in the non-animal testing sector, and is the only award to focus solely on the complete replacement of animal tests.
The Prize has always been encouraged by the potential of 21st century technologies, like genetics and robotics, to replace the Victorian-era technology of live animal use. Previous science winners include US universities specialising in organ-on-a-chip research, Chinese researchers using human stem cells in their tests, and UK projects focussing on computer modelling of chemical toxicity.
In the ten years since its launch much has changed in the science world regarding the use of animals in testing, but much remains to be done.
This year the Prize is particularly looking for projects which raise wider public awareness of the need for change, as well as for scientists who are developing new tests to address more complex safety issues, for example in developmental toxicity (the passing of chemicals between mothers and unborn babies).
Nominations for the 2022 Lush Prize closed on 17th June and the expert panel will deliberate over 2 days worth of discussions in September, with winners to be awarded their prizes during a virtual ceremony in November. There will also be a ’10 Years of Lush Prize’ online conference over the 15th and 16th November, looking at successes over the past 10 years and discussing what remains to be done to remove animals from safety testing.
More details of this year’s prize can be found on the website at https://lushprize.org
The Prize categories (http://www.lushprize.org/awards/) –
- Public Awareness: public awareness-raising of on going testing
- Science: for the development of replacement non-animal tests
- Training: training researchers in non-animal tests
- Lobbying: policy interventions to promote the use of replacements
- Young Researcher: to researchers under 35 years old specialising in animal replacement research
About Lush:Lush is a campaigning manufacturer and retailer of fresh handmade cosmetics with shops in 49 countries. The Lush Prize is one element in a broader campaign called ‘Fighting Animal Testing’. www.lush.co.uk
About Ethical Consumer:Ethical Consumer Research Association is a not-for-profit research co-operative specialising in independent research into social, animal welfare and environmental issues. www.ethicalconsumer.org
Every year, it is estimated that more than around 200 million animals are used in testing laboratories around the world.
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