Research Governance
Institute effective, risk-based oversight for all high-consequence biological research — regardless of funding source — in every jurisdiction that conducts it.
Last updated: May 11, 2026 · Public updates are batched quarterly, with urgent corrections as needed.
5-year budget target
Pillar
Five-Year Trajectory
2026
Launch pilot bio-audits, accident-reporting frameworks, and institutional adoption pilots for high-consequence biological research
2027
Scale bio-audits, accident reporting, pre-publication biorisk review, and institutional participation into routine practice
2028
Move from pilot research governance to institutionalized oversight, licensing, audit, and institutional adoption frameworks
2029
Ensure accountable public authorities and participating institutions oversee high-consequence biological research in major research nations
2030
Reach high-risk research oversight and bio-audit coverage targets
Current Status of the Field
Bio-audit methods, accident-reporting systems, pre-publication review processes, and personnel reliability tools exist in partial form but are not packaged for routine institutional use.
Several jurisdictions are reassessing high-risk research oversight, but privately funded work, non-Select-Agent research, and publication-risk management remain unevenly covered.
The bottleneck is institutional uptake: researchers and research organizations need workable norms, incentives, and participation pathways, not only external oversight proposals.
The Problem
Some of the most dangerous biological research in the world is conducted under fragmented and inadequate oversight. In many jurisdictions, there are few binding requirements for privately funded high-risk research on non-Select Agents, accidents often go unreported, and there is no consistent independent verification of biosafety and biosecurity practices. At the same time, adoption cannot come only from biosecurity organizations pressing from outside the field: universities, research consortia, funders, journals, and professional societies must understand and participate in the system for it to work. This leaves serious gaps in accountability, transparency, uptake, and risk management.
The Solution
A practical near-term path is to establish consistent approaches for identifying, reviewing, reporting, and independently verifying high-risk biological research while building adoption inside the life-sciences community. Pilot bio-audits, researcher licensing concepts, accident-reporting systems, institutional awareness campaigns, field-led participation norms, and publication-risk practices can lower friction and create models for stronger governance over time while preserving and accelerating low-risk beneficial research. Over time, this should support a genuinely risk-based system in which research posing extreme societal risk is prohibited, research posing severe societal risk is restricted except in rare cases of extraordinary benefit, and the vast majority of low-risk life sciences research faces streamlined oversight rather than unnecessary burden.
Objectives
- All major research nations implement effective, risk-based oversight of high-consequence biological research
- ◇All facilities conducting high-risk biological research undergo independent verification of laboratory safety ("bio-audits")
- ◇Researchers conducting high-risk biological research are licensed, verifying biosafety training and personnel reliability
- ◇Research that could generate high-risk information hazards undergoes appropriate review and risk management before publication
- ◇Institutions conducting high-risk biological research universally monitor and report all accidents to an appropriate, transparent public authority in their jurisdiction
- ◇All major research nations govern biorisk management through an accountable, modernized public authority, capable of enforcing risk-based safeguards across privately and publicly funded research
- Life-sciences institutions adopt and participate in the governance system
- ◇Universities, research consortia, funders, journals, and professional societies integrate risk-based biorisk review into routine research governance
- ◇Institutional leaders, biosafety officers, principal investigators, and trainees receive practical guidance on when high-consequence work requires additional review
- ◇Research institutions participate in bio-audits, accident reporting, and pre-publication biorisk management as field-owned norms, not only externally imposed requirements
- All major research nations implement guardrails on the highest-risk categories of research
- ◇Research posing extreme societal risk is prohibited, including research that may enable the creation of mirror life and research to enhance the human-to-human transmissibility of pathogens
- ◇Research posing severe societal risk is restricted, except in rare cases when it can demonstrate extraordinary and commensurate societal benefit, with no viable alternative methodology, under extensive precautions.*
- ◆Oversight requirements are streamlined and calibrated to minimize burden on the vast majority of low-risk life sciences research.
* This category includes research to generate pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential; research using viable pandemic pathogens for which there is no existing human immunity (including extinct pandemic pathogens); and research that would identify and publicize novel pandemic pathogens that are not currently circulating in, or at imminent risk of entering, the human population.
Urgent 2026 Milestone
Launch pilot bio-audits, establish frameworks for mandatory accident reporting and risk-based oversight, and recruit major life-sciences institutions into adoption pilots.
Long-term Targets
High-risk research oversight coverage
Bio-audit coverage
High-risk publication biorisk management
Year-by-Year
Philanthropy
- •Fund pilots of independent bio-audit programs and development of accident-reporting and researcher-licensing frameworks
- •Fund development of insider-threat mitigation frameworks, including centralized whistleblower programs for high-risk biological research
- •Fund institutional adoption pilots with universities, research consortia, journals, and funders
- •Support norms development for publication biorisk management and responsible research governance
Private Sector
- •Participate in bio-audit pilots, accident reporting, and pre-publication biorisk review pilots as research institutions and consortia
- •Adopt institutional best practices for research risk oversight
Government
- •Develop bio-audit frameworks and support pilot programs
- •Establish mandatory accident-reporting requirements and begin incorporating biorisk management into research funding requirements
- •Partner with major life-sciences institutions on awareness, participation, and adoption pathways
- •Begin development of stronger oversight mechanisms for high-consequence biological research
- •Begin articulating prohibited and restricted categories of research, including mirror life and research to enhance human-to-human pathogen transmissibility
Philanthropy
- •Continue funding deployment of screening software and independent audit capacity across providers, including smaller and international firms
- •Support implementation-focused KYC tools and verification infrastructure
- •Continue funding separate AI-bio evaluation tracks for frontier LLMs, biological foundation models, and autonomous-lab workflows
- •Support broader bio-audit adoption, institutional awareness, and development of publication-risk-management norms
- •Continue support for misuse-detection tooling and cross-provider threat-sharing systems
Private Sector
- •Implement standardized synthesis screening and customer verification at scale
- •Participate in split-order detection systems and submit to independent screening verification where possible
- •Expand KYC adoption across high-risk vendors and service providers
- •Make AI-bio evaluation and safeguard deployment routine across separate LLM, biological foundation model, and autonomous-lab tracks
- •Expand participation in bio-audits, accident reporting, pre-publication review, and institutional adoption pilots
- •Routinely share threat signals and maintain misuse monitoring
Government
- •Move from legislative or rulemaking activity to initial compliance and oversight in synthesis screening and KYC
- •Support independent verification of AI biorisk evaluation and safeguard adoption through track-specific formal agreements or requirements
- •Expand implementation of accident-reporting requirements, research-risk oversight, and institutional participation pathways
- •Support law-enforcement pathways for escalating provider-generated threat signals
Philanthropy
- •Support more advanced evasion-resistant and function-based screening R&D
- •Support scaling of KYC tools and red-teaming across a broader set of high-risk service categories
- •Support secure data infrastructure for high-risk biological AI training data and continued safeguard research across LLM, bio-foundation-model, and autonomous-lab tracks
- •Support global governance reform, institutional adoption, and continued capacity-building for bio-audits and risk-based research oversight
- •Support public communication efforts that reinforce deterrence posture and accountability
Private Sector
- •Submit to independent screening verification and deploy updated screening algorithms
- •Extend KYC and more extensive customer vetting to newly covered categories such as CROs, cloud labs, repositories, and AI/bio tools
- •Continue safeguard deployment for high-risk AI systems and participate in track-specific red-teaming
- •Expand compliance with institutional risk-governance requirements, adoption programs, and misuse monitoring mandates
Government
- •Enforce synthesis-screening compliance and audit requirements
- •Regulate the secondary market for benchtop synthesis devices and broaden KYC requirements to additional high-risk categories
- •Mandate safeguards for high-risk AI systems with biological capabilities across separate LLM, biological foundation model, and autonomous-lab pathways
- •Institutionalize accountable public oversight for high-consequence biological research, including licensing, institutional participation, and bio-audit frameworks
- •Institute requirements for misuse monitoring and threat sharing for high-risk biological services
Philanthropy
- •Focus remaining philanthropic capital on gap-closing, deterrence signaling, and ensuring high-risk systems actually perform under stress
- •Support maturation of attribution capabilities and public communication around accountability
- •Continue targeted support for jurisdictions, sectors, or institutions lagging in compliance, AI-bio safeguards, or research-governance adoption
Private Sector
- •Achieve broad compliance with screening, KYC, safeguard, and misuse-monitoring requirements
- •Maintain regular red-teaming, audit participation, and rapid remediation processes
- •Support stronger bioforensic attribution capability through data-sharing and exercise participation
Government
- •Ensure broad compliance and meaningful enforcement across screening, KYC, AI-bio safeguards, and research governance
- •Verify that high-risk LLM, biological foundation model, and autonomous-lab safeguards perform under stress
- •Establish or strengthen attribution and accountability doctrine for biological attacks
- •Exercise bioforensic and deterrence capabilities routinely
Philanthropy
- •Focus on closing residual gaps, supporting lagging geographies or sectors, and maintaining pressure for continuous improvement
- •Continue support for frontier-risk research, AI-bio track-specific evaluation, institutional research-governance adoption, residual-risk assessment, and measurement refinement
Private Sector
- •Maintain high compliance and continuous improvement in screening, KYC, safeguards, red-teaming, and misuse monitoring
Government
- •Sustain enforcement, update standards to keep pace with new technologies, and ensure risk-governance and AI-bio safeguard systems remain current
Who's Working on This
Funders
regranting
regranting
Implementers
research