80 questions for UK biological security
Creators: name: Kemp, Luke
name: Aldridge, David C.
name: Booy, Olaf
name: Bower, Hilary
name: Browne, Des
name: Burgmann, Mark
name: Burt, Austin
name: Cunningham, Andrew A.
name: Dando, Malcolm
name: Dick, Jaimie T. A.
name: Dye, Christopher
name: Weiss Evans, Sam
name: Gallardo, Belinda
name: Godfray, H. Charles J.
name: Goodfellow, Ian
name: Gubbins, Simon
name: Holt, Lauren A.
name: Jones, Kate E.
name: Kandil, Hazem
name: Martin, Phillip
name: McCaughan, Mark
name: McLeish, Caitríona
name: Meany, Thomas
name: Millett, Kathryn
name: ÓhÉigeartaigh, Sean S.
name: Patron, Nicola J.
name: Rhodes, Catherine
name: Roy, Helen E.
name: Shackelford, Gorm
name: Smith, Derek
name: Spence, Nicola
name: Steiner, Helene
name: Sundaram, Lalitha S.
name: Voeneky, Silja
name: Walker, John R.
name: Watkins, Harry
name: Whitby, Simon
name: Wood, James
name: Sutherland, William J.
Publisher: name: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Research Article
subject: Ecology and environmental sciences
subject: Medicine and health sciences
subject: Social sciences
subject: FOS: Social sciences
subject: FOS: Social sciences
subject: Biology and life sciences
subject: Engineering and technology
subject: FOS: Engineering and technology
subject: FOS: Engineering and technology
subject: Science policy

description: Funder: David and Claudia Harding Foundation
description: Multiple national and international trends and drivers are radically changing what biological security means for the United Kingdom (UK). New technologies present novel opportunities and challenges, and globalisation has created new pathways and increased the speed, volume and routes by which organisms can spread. The UK Biological Security Strategy (2018) acknowledges the importance of research on biological security in the UK. Given the breadth of potential research, a targeted agenda identifying the questions most critical to effective and coordinated progress in different disciplines of biological security is required. We used expert elicitation to generate 80 policy-relevant research questions considered by participants to have the greatest impact on UK biological security. Drawing on a collaboratively-developed set of 450 questions, proposed by 41 experts from academia, industry and the UK government (consulting 168 additional experts) we subdivided the final 80 questions into six categories: bioengineering; communication and behaviour; disease threats (including pandemics); governance and policy; invasive alien species; and securing biological materials and securing against misuse. Initially, the questions were ranked through a voting process and then reduced and refined to 80 during a one-day workshop with 35 participants from a variety of disciplines. Consistently emerging themes included: the nature of current and potential biological security threats, the efficacy of existing management actions, and the most appropriate future options. The resulting questions offer a research agenda for biological security in the UK that can assist the targeting of research resources and inform the implementation of the UK Biological Security Strategy. These questions include research that could aid with the mitigation of Covid-19, and preparation for the next pandemic. We hope that our structured and rigorous approach to creating a biological security research agenda will be replicated in other countries and regions. The world, not just the UK, is in need of a thoughtful approach to directing biological security research to tackle the emerging issues.