About the Seminar

March 05, 2026 9:00am—10:30am

We were at the beginning of a paradigm shift in biosecurity and biosafety governance. Governments confronted the limits of reactive, fragmented systems that prioritized performative compliance while offering few ways to measure or improve safety and security outcomes. Companies and universities were caught in a compliance trap but were also eager to responsibly expand biotechnology into domains—including manufacturing and ecosystem management—that fell well outside the original scope of existing oversight.

Governance reform, however, could not simply build on existing measures, because they rested on assumptions about science, security, and the role of the state that were poorly aligned with contemporary conditions.

In this CSPO Rethinking Science, Policy Seminar, Sam Evans outlined those assumptions, how they were embedded in current governing structures, and where they fell short. He then described a new paradigm for biosecurity and biosafety governance that was forming within policy circles and showed how it could transform reactive, fragmented oversight into a proactive system that supported national security, economic vitality, and cultural prosperity.

Dr. Evans closed with a call to action for those who wanted to be part of this paradigm shift.

Links

• Youtube Link