The second Advanced Training School took place in June 2024 in Berlin at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). Out of 60 applicants, 22 young scientists from 13 European countries were invited to learn more about the use of home cage based technologies to monitor rodents in research. The students’ participation was fully funded by COST.
The various presentations focused on ways to improve the standardisation and reproducibility of behavioural testing. In addition to commercially available home cage based set-ups, self-developed set-ups were presented and examples of their use were given. The importance of home cage testing for animal welfare was also discussed.
The options for building self-made systems or replicating existing ones are becoming increasingly diverse. Therefore, a workshop was held with a very simple example of how to build a simple prototype to measure activity in the home cage. Participants were guided through the building instructions step by step, so that by the end everyone had their own small device. The workshop was designed to give participants a first experience of building their own devices and to overcome any fears they might have.
Interacting and networking with each other and the experts was an important part of the Training School. Many opportunities were provided for this, including breaks, lunches and the various evening events.