In 2009, the Office of Animal Research Oversight (OARO) was established following dissolution of the Office for Protection of Research Subjects. With the creation of OARO, the ARC administrative staff separated from our human subjects oversight colleagues to focus on service to the following audiences:
- the public, by upholding the highest legal and ethical standards of animal care;
- the University, by ensuring institutional compliance with federal, state, and local regulations governing the use of animals; and
- the research community, by facilitating thorough and balanced reviews of protocols designed to better mankind and improve the understanding of science.
In 2013, OARO expanded our focus to include administrative support to the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC).
In 2014, we expanded again to include administrative support to two newly formed committees: the Chemical & Physical Safety Committee (CPSC) and Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research Safety Oversight Committee (OSOC).
In 2015, we took on support for the government-mandated Dual Use Review Entity (DURE) and UCOP-mandated High Containment Laboratory Oversight Group (HCLOG).
And in 2016, we welcomed the Radiation Safety Committees (RSC) to our portfolio of faculty led committees for which we provide administrative support.
With each expansion, OARO staff have remained true to providing excellent service as described above, but with a different focus for each new group. However, in light of how we have grown these last four years, our name is no longer a fitting indicator of the support we provide to our campus colleagues.
As such, effective January 26, 2017, OARO is now the Research Safety & Animal Welfare Administration (RSAWA). The staff you currently work with can still be reached directly via their individual email addresses and phone numbers and our ARC, IBC, and RSC main phone lines remain unchanged. However, our group email addresses and websites have changed as follows:
For ARC business, oaro@research.ucla.edu will redirect to arc@research.ucla.edu for 1 year.
For IBC business, oibc@research.ucla.edu will redirect to ibc@research.ucla.edu for 1 year.
For RSC business, orsc@research.ucla.edu will redirect to rsc@research.ucla.edu for 1 year.
*no change to the CPSC group email account
The new homepage for our department is now http://rsawa.research.ucla.edu
ARC content is available at http://rsawa.research.ucla.edu/arc
CPSC content is available at http://rsawa.research.ucla.edu/cpsc
IBC content is available at http://rsawa.research.ucla.edu/ibc
OSOC content is available at http://rsawa.research.ucla.edu/osoc
RSC content is available at http://rsawa.research.ucla.edu/rsc
We hope that this transition is seamless for you, but anticipate that there will be a few bumps along the way. As with any major project, we invite your comments and feedback; in particular, if you identify broken links or incorrect information on our webpages, let us know!
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. On behalf of the RSAWA team, we look forward to continuing to support your research endeavors.