Research Involving Animals (IACUC)

The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) is required by law to provide oversight for all animal care and use activity at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). Please contact the IACUC if you plan to use animals for any purpose on or off campus related to UCCS functions or activities.

Accreditation

At this point, UCCS does not have a Public Health Service/National Institutes of Health/Office of Lab Animal Welfare (OLAW) accreditation. For this reason, it is currently only permissible to conduct non-federally funded research with wildlife. Please carefully review and fill out the IACUC Wildlife Research Application . Should your research involve laboratory animals, please make sure to contact the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Integrity (OSPRI) as early as possible to get the appropriate procedures and safeguards in place.

Questions may be directed to:

If your research involves laboratory animals, contact the OSPRI as early as possible.  The IACUC Chair may be reached at 719-255-3668 or jbono@uccs.edu.

IACUC Wildlife CITI Training is required for all personnel including PIs and Co-PIs involved in human subjects research. Our Wildlife CITI Training Quick Start Guide will help guide you through the beginning of the process. The training must be completed prior to IACUC review. CITI training can be accessed at https://www.citiprogram.org/ .

Useful References

• American Society of Mammalogists Animal Care and Use Guidelines
• Ornithological Council Guidelines to the Use of Wild Birds in Research
• American Fisheries Society, American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists, and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Guidelines to the Use of Fishes in Research
• American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists  Guidelines to the Use of Amphibians and Reptiles in Research
• Sikes, R.S., E. Paul, and S. Beaupre. 2012. Standards for Wildlife Research: Taxon-Specific Guidelines Versus US Public Health Services Policy. BioScience 62(9):830-834
• Sikes, R.S. and E. Paul. 2013.Fundamental differences between wildlife and biomedical research. ILAR Journal 54(1):5-13
• Paul, E. and R.S. Sikes. 2013. Wildlife researchers running the permit maze. ILAR Journal 54(1):14-23
• Nisbet, I.C.T. and E. Paul. 2000. Ethical issues concerning animal research outside the laboratory. ILAR Journal 45(3):375-377