# How to Write an Animal Welfare Statement for Your Manuscript By the end of this article you will be able to draft a complete animal welfare statement for a manuscript, place it in the right section, match it to the reporting checklist your target journal expects, and check that it does not contradict your own Methods section. You will need a few documents on hand before you start: your approved animal protocol with its approval number and dates, the exact names of the guidelines your oversight committee cited, your species and animal counts, and your Methods draft with the anesthesia, analgesia, housing, and endpoint details written out. ## What an Animal Welfare Statement Is and Why Journals Ask for One Most scientific journals ask authors to include a statement that animal studies were carried out in agreement with the regulations on the use and care of laboratory animals. That sentence carries two assumptions. The first is that every animal experiment in the paper was evaluated and approved by an ethics committee before work began. The second is that animal welfare was treated as a priority throughout the protocol [1]. When a neuroscientist reviewed how these statements actually function in published papers, the picture was uncomfortable. Discrepancies between the procedures described in the Methods section and the guidelines the statement claims to follow appear regularly. Some papers understate pain or distress. Some disregard physiological parameters that the claimed framework requires authors to monitor. Some manuscripts are revised during peer review in ways that change what was done to animals, without anyone revisiting the ethical and regulatory implications [1]. The lesson for authors is direct. An animal welfare statement is not boilerplate. It is a verifiable claim, and reviewers, editors, and ethics committees increasingly treat it that way. Writing it well is part of the responsible conduct of research, in the same category as data integrity and honest authorship. This is also where [research ethics](/blog/guides/research-ethics-fundamentals-a-practical-guide-for-early-career-scientists) becomes concrete: modern guidance across research ethics argues that oversight should rest on explicit ethical principles rather than on box-ticking compliance alone [2]. A well-written statement shows which principle applied to which procedure. ## Where the Statement Goes and What the Standard Format Looks Like ![Six-step flow showing the order of elements in an animal welfare statement, from approval body through justification of numbers.](/article-images/illustrations/animal-welfare-statement-manuscript-statement-elements-order.webp) The animal welfare statement manuscript format is simple and consistent across most biomedical journals. The statement almost always appears as one or two paragraphs at the end of the Methods section, immediately after the experimental procedures and before the [statistical analysis](/blog/guides/statistical-analysis). Many journals also ask you to enter the same text, or a shortened version, into a dedicated "Ethics" or "Animal welfare" field in the online submission system. A few journals ask for the approval details to be repeated in the Acknowledgments or on the title page. Your target journal's guide for authors settles this. Check it before you write, because reformatting after submission is the most common reason editors send the manuscript back. The paragraph is written in past tense, in plain declarative sentences, and covers six things in a predictable order: 1. Which body approved the work and under which protocol number 2. Which guidelines or regulations the protocol followed 3. Which species, strains, sexes, and numbers were used 4. How pain, distress, and physiological stability were managed 5. Which humane endpoints applied and who monitored them 6. How animal numbers were justified and how refinement was applied Some journals add a seventh item, a sentence confirming that the report follows the ARRIVE reporting guidelines for in vivo research. ARRIVE is a widely adopted checklist that organizes [animal research](/blog/guides/animal-research) reporting into a core set of essential items, including the ethical statement itself, [sample size justification](/knowledge/diagnostics/research-methods/how-to-justify-sample-size-in-grant-proposals-and-manuscripts-a-reviewer-s-perspective), and welfare-related monitoring. If the journal names ARRIVE in its instructions, say in your statement that you followed it, and then actually verify your manuscript item by item against the checklist before submission. ## What to Include, Element by Element Each element below earns its place in the paragraph because a reviewer or editor can check it against something else you wrote. That is the real test of the statement. Every sentence should trace back to your approved protocol or to your Methods section. ### 1. The approval body and protocol number Name the committee that reviewed the work, the institution it belongs to, and the protocol number with its approval date. If your institution uses an institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC), write that. If your institution calls it an ethics committee for animal experimentation, write that. Use the exact name on the approval letter, because editors sometimes contact institutions to verify protocol numbers. ### 2. The named guidelines and regulations Name the guideline exactly as your approved protocol names it. For work conducted under United States oversight, that is typically the Animal Welfare Act and its regulations together with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. For work reviewed under European frameworks, the protocol will usually cite Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. The critical rule is consistency. If your statement claims one framework and your Methods describe procedures that framework does not permit, you have created the exact discrepancy pattern that reviewers of published animal work have repeatedly flagged [1]. ### 3. Species, strain, sex, and numbers State the species, the strain or breed, the sex distribution, and the total number of animals. These numbers must match the reporting table in your results and the group sizes in your Methods. If animals were excluded during the study, state how many were excluded and why, because exclusions change the effective numbers behind your statistics. ### 4. Pain and distress management Summarize what was done to prevent and relieve pain and distress, and point to the Methods section for doses and schedules. Vague phrases such as "pain was minimized" are the weakest possible formulation. Name the anesthetic, the analgesic, the timing relative to the procedure, and the monitoring frequency. If a procedure was performed without anesthesia or analgesia, say why the protocol permitted that and how distress was otherwise controlled. ### 5. Humane endpoints and monitoring Define the criteria that ended an animal's participation, such as a body condition threshold, loss of a specific behavior, or a measured physiological limit. Name who monitored the animals and how often. A statement that lists endpoints but never says who looked for them will not survive a careful review. ### 6. Justification of numbers and refinement One sentence is usually enough to connect the statement to the 3Rs, the framework of replacement, reduction, and refinement that underlies modern animal research ethics. State that animal numbers were justified in advance, usually by a power calculation, and that procedures followed refinement practices such as enrichment or training-based handling where applicable. ## Animal Welfare Statement Manuscript Template The following animal welfare statement manuscript template covers all six core elements. Replace every bracketed field with your own protocol details. Delete any bracketed sentence that does not apply, and never leave a placeholder in a submitted manuscript. ``` All animal procedures were approved by the [committee name] of [Institution] under protocol [number], approved on [date] and last renewed on [date]. The work was conducted in accordance with [exact guideline names as cited in the approved protocol]. The study used [N] [species, strain, sex distribution, age range], obtained from [source]. Animals were housed under [housing summary or reference to Methods] and monitored [frequency] by [trained personnel role]. [Procedures requiring intervention] were performed under [anesthetic], with [analgesic] administered [schedule], as detailed in Methods. Humane endpoints were [criteria], and animals reaching an endpoint were euthanized by [method] in accordance with the approved protocol. Animal numbers were justified by an a priori power analysis (see Methods). The study followed the 3Rs principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement, and the manuscript was prepared in accordance with the ARRIVE reporting guidelines. ``` Keep the template in your lab's shared folder as a plain text file. Update the bracketed fields at the time you submit the protocol amendment, not on submission day, so the statement and the protocol never drift apart. ## Animal Welfare Statement Manuscript Example Here is a filled-in example for a fictional mouse surgery study, written the way a finished paragraph should read in a submitted manuscript: ``` All procedures were approved by the Meridian University Animal Care and Use Committee (protocol AU-2024-0187, approved 14 March 2024) and conducted in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and institutional animal welfare policy. The study used 48 adult C57BL/6J mice (24 male, 24 female, aged 8 to 12 weeks) from the institutional breeding facility. Animals were group housed with nesting material and enrichment and were handled daily for one week before surgery. Craniotomy was performed under isoflurane anesthesia in oxygen, with preoperative and postoperative analgesia as detailed in Methods. Body weight and surgical site condition were assessed daily by trained animal care staff. Humane endpoints included more than 15 percent loss of preoperative body weight, wound dehiscence, or persistent abnormal posture, and animals meeting an endpoint were euthanized by approved overdose of anesthetic followed by a secondary physical method, per the approved protocol. Sample size was justified by an a priori power analysis (see Methods). Procedures were refined in line with the 3Rs principles, and this report was prepared following the [ARRIVE guidelines](/knowledge/veterinary-medicine/veterinary-research-methods/arrive-guidelines-animal-research-implementation-compliance). ``` Two things make this example work. Every number in the first paragraph can be checked against the protocol. Every welfare claim in the second paragraph can be checked against the Methods section. ## Writing an Animal Welfare Statement for Your Manuscript, Step by Step This walkthrough takes you from raw protocol documents to a submission-ready paragraph. The whole process takes about an hour the first time and ten minutes once your lab keeps the records current. **Step 1. Pull your documents together.** Collect the approval letter, the current approved protocol, any amendments, and your Methods draft. Lay them out in the order you will cite them. **Step 2. Write the approval sentence.** Copy the committee name, protocol number, and approval date from the approval letter itself, not from memory. Draft it like this: ``` All procedures were approved by the [committee name] of [Institution] under protocol [number], approved on [date]. ``` Expected output for the fictional example: ``` All procedures were approved by the Meridian University Animal Care and Use Committee under protocol AU-2024-0187, approved on 14 March 2024. ``` **Step 3. Match the guideline names to the protocol.** Open the protocol and copy the guideline titles verbatim into your statement. If the protocol cites the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and your statement says something else, an editor will ask which document the committee actually approved. **Step 4. Sweep your Methods for every welfare-relevant procedure.** Build a short list: anesthesia, analgesia, surgical preparation, restraint, housing, food or water regulation, behavioral testing, euthanasia. For each item, confirm that the statement summarizes it and the Methods give the detail. This step is where most discrepancies get caught before an editor catches them. **Step 5. Run the ARRIVE check.** If the journal follows ARRIVE, open the checklist and confirm each essential item: the ethics statement, study design, sample size, allocation, outcomes, and welfare monitoring all have homes in the manuscript. The statement itself only needs one sentence committing to the checklist. The verification happens across the whole paper. **Step 6. Have someone else read it against the protocol.** A co-author or your institution's animal care office can spot a mismatch in minutes. This mirrors what ethics committees do when they audit published work against approved protocols. **Step 7. Place it and sync it.** Paste the paragraph at the end of Methods. Paste the same text into the submission system's ethics field. If the journal requires a shorter version, shorten it by trimming detail, not by removing the protocol number. **Common errors and fixes.** Editors most often send these queries, and each has a one-line fix: - "Please provide the protocol number and the name of the approving committee." Fix: add both to the first sentence, from the approval letter. - "Please specify the anesthesia and analgesia used." Fix: name them in the statement and confirm the doses are in Methods. - "The number of animals in the welfare statement does not match the reported group sizes." Fix: reconcile exclusions and recount. - "Please state which reporting guidelines were followed." Fix: add the ARRIVE sentence and verify the checklist. ## The Ethics Behind the Sentence: Harm-Benefit Analysis Understanding where your statement fits in the wider research ethics framework helps you write it with conviction instead of compliance language. Under Directive 2010/63/EU, which governs animal research across the European Union, harm-benefit analysis is one of the central pillars of project evaluation. A review of the animal research ethics literature found that implementing harm-benefit analysis properly is hampered by vague policy language, especially around what counts as a benefit [3]. The same review surfaced three findings that matter to authors. First, the epistemic benefits of preclinical studies, meaning the knowledge value of the work itself, tend to be valued less than translational benefits. Second, the ethical evaluation of animal projects should account for experimental quality and validity, because a poorly designed study imposes animal harm without producing defensible knowledge. Third, the gap between the scientific community and the public needs deliberate effort, through engagement and transparent communication, to rebuild trust in biomedical research [3]. The practical implication for your manuscript is that the statement and the Methods together are your public account of the harm-benefit bargain. A statement that justifies animal numbers, documents refinement, and reports welfare monitoring honestly is the visible part of that bargain. Sloppy welfare reporting is not just a formatting problem, it weakens the credibility of the benefit side of the analysis. ## Describing Welfare Impact Honestly Two areas of current animal welfare science should shape how you describe welfare in your statement. The first is which welfare indicators you choose to report. The Five Domains Model, a widely used framework in [animal welfare assessment](/knowledge/animal-farming/poultry/poultry-welfare-assessment-protocols-and-practical-implementation), separates welfare into nutrition, physical environment, health, behavior, and mental state. When researchers and swine veterinarians were asked to weigh pig welfare impairment from respiratory disease using indicators aligned with this model, severe respiratory distress was rated the largest single contributor at 29.8 percent, ahead of repeated coughing at 22.7 percent and complete loss of appetite at 19.2 percent, with reduced play and exploratory behavior also contributing substantially [4]. The message for authors is that welfare monitoring in a study should span behavioral and affective indicators, not only clinical health measures, and your statement should name the indicators your protocol actually used. The second is that stakeholders disagree about what welfare means, and your reviewers will come from all of those traditions. A survey of farmers, veterinarians, and advisors across six European countries found that alternative-system farmers prioritized natural behaviors, outdoor access, and species-specific behaviors, while veterinarians emphasized disease prevention, producing systematically different views on welfare-health interactions [5]. When you write that welfare was monitored, specify the dimension: behavioral freedom, clinical health, or both. Reviewers from a natural-living tradition and reviewers from a clinical tradition will read the same sentence very differently. Finally, consider the animals themselves. Some lines and breeds carry welfare-relevant traits that deserve explicit mention. Brachycephalic dog breeds, for example, experience anatomical changes that affect respiration, thermoregulation, and multiple other [body systems](/blog/guides/body-systems), with welfare consequences that are now well documented [6]. The same logic applies to laboratory strains with known phenotypes, such as strains prone to seizures, obesity, or respiratory compromise. If your animals have such traits, disclose them, explain how the protocol accounted for them, and state the endpoints that protected them. Hiding a known welfare-relevant phenotype behind the word "mouse" or "dog" is the kind of omission that careful readers notice. ## Common Mistakes and Limitations These are the errors that most often trigger editorial queries, ethics office callbacks, or retractions of trust. 1. **The copy-paste mismatch.** The statement claims adherence to a framework whose requirements the Methods visibly do not meet, such as analgesia mentioned in the statement but absent from the surgical procedure description. This discrepancy pattern has been documented across published animal research [1]. 2. **Vague pain language.** "All efforts were made to minimize suffering" tells a reviewer nothing. Name the anesthetic, the analgesic, the schedule, and the monitoring. 3. **Missing protocol identifiers.** A statement without a committee name and protocol number cannot be verified and will be queried. 4. **Underestimated pain and ignored physiology.** Reviews of published work describe underestimation of pain or distress and disregard for physiological parameters as recurring failures in animal reporting [1]. Write your statement from the monitoring records, not from good intentions. 5. **Revised procedures without renewed ethics input.** If peer review leads you to change a procedure, dose, or endpoint, those changes must go back through your committee before the revised manuscript is submitted. Manuscript revisions that quietly diverge from approved protocols are a documented double dilemma for journals and authors alike [1]. 6. **Wrong framework citation.** Citing a regulation your protocol never followed to sound rigorous creates a false record. Cite what the committee approved. 7. **Silence on negative welfare events.** If animals died unexpectedly or reached endpoints early, report it in the results. Concealment undermines both the welfare claim and the scientific claim. **Limitations.** Exact wording requirements differ between journals, and institutional rules differ between countries, so treat this article as a framework and treat your guide for authors and your animal care office as the final authorities. Individual protocols, species, and procedures vary enough that your specific statement needs your own committee's confirmation before submission. The table below summarizes the components, what a strong version looks like, and what draws an editor's pen: | Component | What a strong statement contains | Why it gets flagged | |, - |, - |, - | | Approval body | Committee name, institution, protocol number, approval date | Missing number, committee name not verifiable | | Framework | Exact guideline names as cited in the protocol | Framework cited differs from protocol | | Animals | Species, strain, sex split, total N, source | Numbers mismatch the results tables | | Pain management | Anesthetic, analgesic, timing, pointer to Methods | Vague phrase "pain was minimized" | | Monitoring | Who monitored, how often, which indicators | No behavioral or affective indicators named | | Endpoints | Concrete humane endpoint criteria and euthanasia method | Endpoints undefined or unenforceable | | Justification | Power analysis reference, 3Rs refinement practices | Numbers described as "based on pilot data" only | ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Where should the animal welfare statement appear in a manuscript? Put it as the final paragraph of the Methods section, before the statistical analysis, and repeat it in the submission system's ethics field if the journal provides one. ### Do I need a statement if my study used only animal tissue or cell lines? ![Decision path asking if live animals were used, if only tissue or cell lines were used, and what the statement must then contain.](/article-images/illustrations/animal-welfare-statement-manuscript-tissue-statement-check.webp) Most journals require a statement whenever animal-derived material was obtained, even if no live animals were used in your hands, and typically ask you to cite the source and the original approval covering that material. ### What is the ARRIVE guideline and does my statement need to mention it? ARRIVE is a reporting checklist for in vivo animal research that journals use to judge completeness. Mention it in your statement if the journal's instructions name it, and then verify each essential item across your manuscript. ### Can I reuse the same animal welfare statement across several papers? You can reuse the approval sentence if the protocol is unchanged, but the species, numbers, procedures, and welfare measures must match each specific paper, so never copy the full paragraph blindly. ### What should I do if my procedures changed after the protocol was approved? Submit an amendment to your committee and get the change approved before submitting the revised manuscript, because silently diverging from the approved protocol is a documented failure pattern in animal research publishing. ### Do journal editors actually check animal welfare statements? Editors and reviewers increasingly do, and published critiques show they catch mismatches between claimed guidelines and described procedures, so write as if the statement will be audited. ### Is an approval number mandatory, or can I just cite the guidelines? An approval number is effectively mandatory for live animal work, since most journals will not accept a statement that cites guidelines without naming the approving body and protocol. ### How long should an animal welfare statement be? Two short paragraphs, roughly 150 to 250 words, cover every required element, with the detailed procedures left in Methods where they belong. ## Sources 1. [Conducting and reporting animal experimentation: Quo vadis?](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30058230/) 2. [Developing a framework for the ethical design and conduct of pragmatic trials in healthcare: a mixed methods research protocol.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30261933/) 3. [Cui Bono? Characterisation of the benefit concept and the justificatory narratives in animal research ethics literature.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/43012442/) 4. [Quantifying welfare impairment from respiratory disease in fattening pigs using adaptive conjoint analysis.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/43010100/) 5. [Life worth living or healthy lives? Stakeholder views on biosecurity and animal welfare in EU organic, extensive and small-scale pig and poultry farming systems.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/43010076/) 6. [Canine Brachycephaly: Anatomy, Pathology, Genetics and Welfare.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32359622/)