Every scientific project requering vertebrates (mammals, birds, fishes, reptiles or amphibians) and also the fœtal or embryonic forms of mammals or cephalopods must be allowed by the ministry of research.
A referral must be deposited to be evaluated by the ethics committee of animal testing. The permission is applicable for 5 years.

In 1959, the british William M. S. Russell and Rex L. Burch defined the 3R rule (reduce, refine, replace) which currently governs the ethical obligations supervising animal testing.

Reduce : Each experience is thought to reduce the number of animal used and in particular by :
- limiting the repetition of the experience
- redaction of a protocol concerning all experience
- only conducting essential experiments
- sharing animals, tissues or organs taken from the animal between colleagues working on related fields
- using statistic tools to define previously the bare minimum of animals necessary in each experiments to obtain exploitable results

Replace : It is the main goal today. As soon as possible, whether a replacement method like in vitro (cellular) model or in silico (informatic modelisation) model exists, it would be done.

Rehome It is the fourth «R». This recent concept encourages the retirment of the animals at the end of the experiments. It is not a requirment but only an authorization for some animals that do not represent any danger for the public health, the animal health or the environment.

There is an other important concept which is the limit point. Before each experimentation on an animal model, limit points of suffering are established and set the factors defining the end of the study.

In 2015, the Graal association has rehomed more than 500 dogs, 50 horses, 30 monkeys and many fishes.

In France, animal research uses 2,2 millions of animal each year, the equivalent of 1 animal per 30 persons/year.

70% of the studies done by the public research in France are made on in vitro models or in a other word on cellular models.