Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Aug;177(16):3617-3624.
doi: 10.1111/bph.15193. Epub 2020 Jul 14.

The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research

Nathalie Percie du Sert  1 , Viki Hurst  1 , Amrita Ahluwalia  2   3 , Sabina Alam  4 , Marc T Avey  5 , Monya Baker  6 , William J Browne  7 , Alejandra Clark  8 , Innes C Cuthill  9 , Ulrich Dirnagl  10 , Michael Emerson  11 , Paul Garner  12 , Stephen T Holgate  13 , David W Howells  14 , Natasha A Karp  15 , Stanley E Lazic  16 , Katie Lidster  1 , Catriona J MacCallum  17 , Malcolm Macleod  18 , Esther J Pearl  1 , Ole H Petersen  19 , Frances Rawle  20 , Penny Reynolds  21 , Kieron Rooney  22 , Emily S Sena  18 , Shai D Silberberg  23 , Thomas Steckler  24 , Hanno Würbel  25
Affiliations

The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research

Nathalie Percie du Sert et al. Br J Pharmacol. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Reproducible science requires transparent reporting. The ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) were originally developed in 2010 to improve the reporting of animal research. They consist of a checklist of information to include in publications describing in vivo experiments to enable others to scrutinise the work adequately, evaluate its methodological rigour, and reproduce the methods and results. Despite considerable levels of endorsement by funders and journals over the years, adherence to the guidelines has been inconsistent, and the anticipated improvements in the quality of reporting in animal research publications have not been achieved. Here, we introduce ARRIVE 2.0. The guidelines have been updated and information reorganised to facilitate their use in practice. We used a Delphi exercise to prioritise and divide the items of the guidelines into 2 sets, the "ARRIVE Essential 10," which constitutes the minimum requirement, and the "Recommended Set," which describes the research context. This division facilitates improved reporting of animal research by supporting a stepwise approach to implementation. This helps journal editors and reviewers verify that the most important items are being reported in manuscripts. We have also developed the accompanying Explanation and Elaboration (E&E) document, which serves (1) to explain the rationale behind each item in the guidelines, (2) to clarify key concepts, and (3) to provide illustrative examples. We aim, through these changes, to help ensure that researchers, reviewers, and journal editors are better equipped to improve the rigour and transparency of the scientific process and thus reproducibility.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

AA: editor in chief of the British Journal of Pharmacology. WJB, ICC and ME: authors of the original ARRIVE guidelines. WJB: serves on the Independent Statistical Standing Committee of the funder CHDI foundation. AC: Senior Editor, PLOS ONE. AC, CJMcC, MMcL and ESS: involved in the IICARus trial. ME, MMcL and ESS: have received funding from NC3Rs. ME: sits on the MRC ERPIC panel. STH: chair of the NC3Rs board, trusteeship of the BLF, Kennedy Trust, DSRU and CRUK, member of Governing Board, Nuffield Council of Bioethics, member Science Panel for Health (EU H2020), founder and NEB Director Synairgen, consultant Novartis, Teva and AZ, chair MRC/GSK EMINENT Collaboration. VH, KL, EJP and NPdS: NC3Rs staff, role includes promoting the ARRIVE guidelines. SEL and UD: on the advisory board of the UK Reproducibility Network, CJMcC: shareholdings in Hindawi, on the publishing board of the Royal Society, on the EU Open Science policy platform. UD, MMcL, NPdS, CJMcC, ESS, TS and HW: members of EQIPD. MMcL: member of the Animals in Science Committee, on the steering group of the UK Reproducibility Network. NPdS and TS: associate editors of BMJ Open Science. OHP: vice president of Academia Europaea, editor in chief of Function, senior executive editor of the Journal of Physiology, member of the Board of the European Commission's SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies). FR: NC3Rs board member, shareholdings in GSK. FR and NAK: shareholdings in AstraZeneca. PR: member of the University of Florida Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, editorial board member of Shock. ESS: editor in chief of BMJ Open Science. SDS: role is to provide expertise and does not represent the opinion of the NIH. TS: shareholdings in Johnson & Johnson. SA, MTA, MB, PG, DWH, and KR declared no conflict of interest.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Ancker, J. S. , & Flanagin, A. (2007). A comparison of conflict of interest policies at peer‐reviewed journals in different scientific disciplines. Science and Engineering Ethics, 13(2), 147–157. 10.1007/s11948-007-9011-z PubMed PMID: 17717729 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Avey, M. T. , Moher, D. , Sullivan, K. J. , Fergusson, D. , Griffin, G. , Grimshaw, J. M. , … Canadian Critical Care Translational Biology Group . (2016). The Devil Is in the Details: Incomplete Reporting in Preclinical Animal Research. PLoS ONE, 11(11), e0166733 10.1371/journal.pone.0166733 PubMed PMID: 27855228; PubMed Central PMCID: PMCPMC5113978 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bate, S. T. , & Clark, R. A. (2014). The design and statistical analysis of animal experiments (p. 310). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press; 10.1017/CBO9781139344319 - DOI
    1. Begley, C. G. , & Ellis, L. M. (2012). Drug development: raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature, 483(7391), 531–533. 10.1038/483531a PubMed PMID: 22460880 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Begley, C. G. , & Ioannidis, J. P. (2015). Reproducibility in science: improving the standard for basic and preclinical research. Circulation Research, 116(1), 116–126. 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.114.303819 PubMed PMID: 25552691 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types