A future ‘rodentopia’? Imagining a good life for rats and mice used in research (and the humans who work with them)

This invited perspective imagines 2066, this journal’s centennial. Building on current understandings of rodent cognition, affect and welfare needs, we envision a world with dramatically altered societal attitudes toward rats and mice: widely kept as companion animals (pets), they are valued as intelligent, sociable beings. Scientific validity, animal welfare and human welfare are also considered inseparable priorities, further transforming biomedical animal-use. Within this context, animal-based research now involves two complementary models. Laboratory research persists, under conditions radically improved over today’s: environments are large, naturalistic and highly ‘enriched’; and procedures rely on voluntary participation (ruling out any that animals will not tolerate). In addition, ‘research clinics’ operate, where naturally sick or ageing companion rodents are patients in clinical trials that integrate research with veterinary care. Now the only way to study harms like cancer and pain (or to use invasive procedures, if animals’ guardians’ consent), these trials benefit animals and generate data with improved translational relevance. In both systems, high welfare conditions across rodents’ lifespans – from prenatal care to end-of-natural-life euthanasia – produce resilient, robust individuals whose excellent well-being and stable physiologies enhance replicability and translational success. Care staff and researcher well-being is also improved by positive human–animal interactions, pleasant environments, and enhanced societal regard for animal-based biomedical research. Although intentionally idealistic, we contend that meaningful progress needs this reimagining of research approaches and human–animal relationships: that the proposed changes are essential for tackling today’s pressing problems in animal-based biomedical science. We invite this journal’s community to envisage how to realise such a future.