Assessing funding for biosafety and biosecurity
By Impact Global Health 26 August 2026
Biosafety and biosecurity sit at the heart of responsible R&D
CEPI and Impact Global Health are examining how biosafety and biosecurity are funded in global health R&D in the aim of defining clearer expectations between funders and developers.
Science and innovation have delivered, and continue to deliver, spectacular breakthroughs that drastically improve people's lives. Yet those decades of research, investments and efforts require a license to operate built on trust and safety, by the people applying their skills to the science, the organisations they work for, local communities hosting the research sites, the governments regulating the sector and every partner in the supply chain.
The global health R&D community is acutely aware that losing this trust and support can reverse years of effort and relationship-building, ultimately impeding or delaying better health outcomes.
Safeguarding that trust is a global responsibility shared across institutions and geographies, and the consequences of serious biosafety and biosecurity failures extend well beyond any single organisation. Yet biosafety and biosecurity investment is often invisible, inconsistently defined, and fragmented across budget lines. This makes it hard to measure, track and compare investments, leaving funders with limited ability to assess proportionality, compare approaches, or provide support where it’s most needed.
The International Bio Funders Compact, launched in 2024, commits signatories to embedding biosecurity into research funding decisions. To deliver on these commitments, funders need better evidence on what biosecurity costs, how it is funded, and whether current investment is proportionate to risk.
Funders need better evidence on what biosecurity costs, how it is funded, and whether current investment is proportionate to risk.
Our work with CEPI
We are working with CEPI to generate evidence of how biosafety and biosecurity are funded and accounted for in real-world R&D settings, and what current practice implies for the feasibility and usefulness of the commonly referenced benchmark of allocating 1% of R&D spend to biosecurity.
The result will be an evidence-informed view of current practice, the implications of a 1% benchmark, and the basis for clearer, risk-proportionate expectations for partners. Ultimately, the goal is to effectively resource safeguards so R&D activities can continue to deliver the innovations and breakthroughs the world needs.
The findings will be made public and shared with the biomedical R&D community at the end of 2026.
For this study, biosafety refers to the containment practices that prevent accidental exposure to, or release of, biological agents, while biosecurity refers to safeguards against unauthorised access, loss, theft, misuse or diversion of biological materials, equipment, skills and data - and this is the scope of what we are asking about.
How you can contribute to this research
We are seeking to engage key opinion leaders across the biomedical R&D ecosystem who have direct knowledge of, and involvement in, how their organisations define, govern, resource, and account for biosecurity and biosafety activities.
Stakeholders are invited to fill out this short survey: cepi-igh-survey.impactglobalhealth.org or contact us at info@impactgh.org to set up a short interview.
Complete the surveyAll responses will be aggregated and anonymised in our findings.
We welcome contributions from across the sector: public sector organisations, academic and research institutions, private sector/product development organisations, and relevant finance, accounting, and investment functions. Your input will help establish a shared foundation for the sector and inform funding decisions in the years to come.