Oxford University desperate for money (£1.25 billion of it!)

"completing the work on an obsolete, increasingly doubtful and unnecessarily cruel new animal research lab. Oxford had the chance to lead the way in cutting edge research, to forge a name for themselves as forward thinking and original in the fields of science and medicine. But unfortunately they decided to invest valuable time, money and resources into an outdated and dubious research centre and at a time when the accuracy of such research is so doubtful."

Your approach SHOULD be that animal research is morally wrong REGARDLESS of its scientific validity.

The validity, accuracy, etc. of such research might be in doubt to you (and there are VALID concerns about when the results can or cannot properly be applied) but it's not in doubt "in general" within the scientific community.

Do not misunderstand that statement. It is NOT a claim that just about all scientists believe that animal research ALWAYS gives results that can be properly applied (for example, across species). It is simply a claim that most scientists believe that USUALLY (if the operation is properly designed) the results are valid.

BUT --- that does not necessarily justify doing such experiments. Might be useful but ethically insupportable.

Before I get silly in this comment I'd like to suggest people pay thought to what happens to animals such as chimpanzees once the experimentation stops. You can learn about a specific test case involving an Austrian chimp being released from experimentation which will hopefully bring us closer to European wide adoption of Simian rights.  http://www.livescience.com/animals/080529-chimp-human.html
So far some but not many first world states have adopted resolutions on Simian rights. These in Europe Spain and Italy. I don't know about the UK. Read about the Great Ape Rights here :-
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ape_Project
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_on_Great_Apes

I went to school up and over there in Oxford for a while and must admit I never saw any critters being as mistreated as ordinary working class people. But I wouldn't put it past the people there nonetheless and am opposed to animal experimentation. Now they want one a quarter billion quid or 1.564,690,000euros by my reckoning. That's loads of cash. But as an old boy who suffered the hurts and taunts reserved for a non-Briton who worse than being a mere colonial or Rhodes came from the land of southern Ireland during the troubles, I'd like to suggest ways out of the recession which might make up the shortfall once the little bunny rabbits have found homes and the chimpanzees are afforded rights as sentient beings.

(1) Sell degrees on the internet.

They could change the rules on the master degrees they have and offer them for sale on the net. As people who know their "oxon" from their "cantab" and "ad hoc" from the "FRCG" wouldn't need reminding, nobody studies for a masters degree from either the universities of Oxford or Cambridge or their silent step-sister Trinity College Dublin. You just send them a cheque or turn up a few years later ready to waffle a sermon in ancient greek. Which is all very hogworts. Normally the only people who do this sort of thing have already got their "BA" from one of those 3 institutions complete with their "oxon" or "cantab" afterwards and when their oikish work or squat mates start tacking the slack and muttering about doing a masters to make themselves more employable, all they have to do - to stay on ahead of the Smith-Jones' is send a cheque. Bingo - one masters degree. Worth as much effort as a fellowship of the royal geographers' society FRGS) another few letters you can bribe yourself into having. (sorry solicit on merit from your peers)

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_%28Oxbridge_and_Dublin%29

(2) Sell pretty buildings on the internet.

All the constituent colleges of the university are very well endowed with loot. It comes in all forms ranging from real estate to dinky antique collections and notebooks by tippy toppy boffins. They should stick them on eBay and in the case of the buildings will at least know they won't get an export permit. We all remember what happened to the original London Bridge which was sold to , Robert McCulloch, the founder of Lake Havasu city and the chairman of McCulloch Oil Corporation. He got a "very big antique" export declaration which allowed him to ship the original London Bridge to the city he had built in Arizona.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_%28Lake_Havasu_City%29 So this time people should do their best to think ahead and ensure Oxford's pretty buildings and dreamy spires aren't exported to Dubai, Las Vegas, Fermanagh or some second rate former polytechnic university in the north of Wales where people speak with regional accents. I'd suggest giving the appropriate people at HM Customs and Excise "D. Phil (oxon)" doctorates at least to go after their names.

(3) Sell a different range of books.

Oxford University Press is one of the nice little cash cows of university, but look at the boring crap it publishes. It needs to diversify into pornography, chic lit and extend its CD ROM collections into blood and gore slasher games. Everyone knows it can't compete with Cambridge's "english as foreign language" scam which nets in several billion quid from foreigners whose lingustics skills couldn't score crack in Dalston. No offence to Dalston. Lovely little burb is Dalston.

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you can learn about anything from wikipedia.

"You cannot build the South Parks Lab without incurring massive losses." - Oxford Arson Squad

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