Workshop organizing committee co-chair David Kurtz highlighted a few points he thought were important. He appreciated the comments of the regulators who stressed the need to focus on the fundamentals in the regulations and to take advantage of the opportunity to build flexibility into performance standards. He also valued the emphasis many of the speakers and working groups placed on engaging a diverse group of end-users and stakeholders when developing performance standards. He applauded, too, that CRL was publishing its data so the community can examine the results and decide whether they are valid for other facilities.
Kurtz recognized the seriousness with which the working groups treated their tasks. He noted that there were many common themes emerged from the groups regardless of the topic, particularly the importance of keeping animal welfare paramount. Another important theme was using the regulations as an initial framework and to first understand what is and is not contained within the regulations as a starting point for addressing important questions. Brainstorming proved to be valuable for developing performance standards that were not one-size-fits-all solutions but that could accommodate flexibility and enable good science. At the same time, said Kurtz, every institution has its own unique culture and collection of personnel, and a performance standard must match those institutional characteristics. He added while he supports the development of a repository, institutions will have to realize they will not be able to take a deposited performance standard and use it as is in their facilities.
Developing a performance standard is a learning opportunity, said Kurtz. He recounted Mary Ann Vasbinder’s comments that performance standards can evolve as they are being developed and tested and this should not be a source of frustration but of learning. Performance standards are living, breathing documents, Kurtz said, requiring constant monitoring and assessment. It is unclear where performance standards will go in the future, but that is not a reason to maintain the status quo, and he stressed the importance of publishing performance standard research. Performance standards, he said in closing, represent the mechanism the community can use to move forward better ways of doing things without having to wait for the next revision of the Guide or to move the Guide toward being a living, breathing document.
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