The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Biotechnology and biosecurity together form one field: the use of living systems to make products and solve problems, and the protection of people, animals, plants and the environment from biological harm. At The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), the field is studied at the convergence of health, agriculture and industry, because the tools, materials and risks of each now flow into the others. This page defines the field, what experts study and how it connects to other risks.
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The Biotechnology and Biosecurity field covers biotechnology, synthetic biology and biological safety at the convergence of health, agriculture and industry. Experts in it study questions such as synthetic biology and biomanufacturing, with methods such as molecular and life sciences as well as biotechnology platforms. Its counterparts at GRF and GRA look at the same systems through governance and finance.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Biotechnology already shapes daily life through medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, enzymes in food and detergents, and improved crop varieties. Advances in genome sequencing, gene editing, DNA synthesis and computational design have accelerated the field. These capabilities can strengthen preparedness for disease, reduce the environmental footprint of manufacturing and help agriculture adapt to a changing climate.
The same advances raise biosafety and biosecurity questions. Biosafety concerns preventing accidental exposure and release; biosecurity concerns preventing loss, theft and deliberate misuse. Both depend on a culture of responsibility in laboratories and companies, on oversight that keeps up with technology and on preparedness in health and agricultural systems. International instruments, national laws and institutional committees each hold part of this responsibility.
What emerging tools can do, how mature they are and what their risks and benefits are. See synthetic biology and biomanufacturing.
How research environments manage biological risk. See laboratory biosafety and biosecurity.
How natural, accidental and deliberate threats arise and spread, using epidemiology and public health science. See biological threats.
How health is shared between people, animals and ecosystems. See One Health impacts.
How research of concern is identified and escalated. See dual use and ethics.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Dual-use research of concern | Life sciences research that could be directly misapplied to threaten health, agriculture, the environment or security. |
| One Health | An integrated approach that aims to balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems, as the Quadripartite organizations define it. |
| International Health Regulations | The legally binding WHO instrument that sets countries' duties to detect, assess, report and respond to public health events of international concern. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from the interactions and dependencies within and between systems, where a shock can propagate and threaten the functioning of the whole. |
Biotechnology links to public health at Health Nexus, food systems at Food Nexus and ecosystems at Biodiversity Nexus. Its links are traced on dependencies and consequences. Across the Consortium, Health and Biosecurity Governance at The Global Risks Forum (GRF) convenes the governance of health security and Insurance Nexus at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) builds shared industry understanding of health and pandemic risk in insurance.
The platform works at the level of governance, evaluation and risk methods. It publishes no protocols, techniques or information that would increase anyone's capacity to cause harm.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.