The European Union (EU) is working to advance Europe’s leadership in biotechnology, and become a faster, easier, and more attractive place to discover, develop, and manufacture new technology solutions. To safeguard the wins from biotechnology — including increased productivity, innovation, and economic growth — the EU must also increase its focus on biosecurity.
Biological threats — naturally occurring or manmade — are an increasing threat to the EU in our shifting geopolitical climate. In addition, new technologies are transforming how humans interact with and gain access to biological agents. Advances in biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the capacity to engineer biological components of life, increase possibilities for scientific progress and innovation, but at the same time introduce new risks of the release of biological agents either by accident or through weaponisation.
These realities demand a European system built to continuously monitor and adapt to the promises and risks of a rapidly changing technological landscape, enshrine good governance and best practices for biosafety and biosecurity, and comprehensively and collectively address biological threats.
Read our policy brief — in partnership with the Centre for Future Generations, IBBIS, Pour Demain, and RAND Europe — outlining policy priorities for near-term action in the EU.
