The ECVAM Scientific Information Service (SIS)

Abstract

This article provides a general view about the main Scientific Information Service (SIS) projects and their current status. The SIS was established in 1996, to best achieve one of the four main obligations of the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), as required by the European Commission and Parliament, to establish and maintain a database on alternative procedures to animal experimentation. Two projects have been carried out: the SIS databases providing factual information on various aspects of animal alternatives and the ECVAM Thesaurus. The first online version of selected SIS databases was published on the Internet in 2001. The ECVAM Thesaurus will be made available for practical applications in 2004, and the general website of the whole ECVAM unit has been available since autumn 2002.