Toward a Collaborative, Collective, and Integrative International Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Security Education.

Background: Despite the entry into force of the 1975 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) many years ago, the risk of malign use of chemistry and biology has been a consistently growing threat. Various initiatives have been proposed to address chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) security issues, particularly on the issue of dual-use research of concern (DURC).

Methods: In this article, we first briefly review the history and evolution of chemical and biological security education. Then we discuss the challenges faced among the initiatives developed to strengthen the BTWC and CWC. We further analyze the lessons learned for establishing global biosecurity education, and we conclude that international collaboration and coordination are keys to raising awareness of the necessity for biological security education. In the end, we detail our new initiative entitled the International Biological Security Education Network (IBSEN), which aims to provide this needed global framework through developing resources in biosecurity education in collaboration with international and regional actors using new methodologies and a linguistic plurality.

Discussion: We believe that a collaborative, collective, and integrative international CBRN security education is the key to ensuring a broad engagement in biosecurity education and addressing the issue of DURC.