co-authors: Etienne Decroly, Patrick Berche, Ali Asy, Maggie L. Bartlett, Åsa Szekely Björndal, Christian Brechot, Patrick G. Casey, Patrick Couvreur, Maria J. Espona, Claudia Filippone, Diah Iskandriati, Wilmot James, Rafael Elias Marques, Zabta Khan Shinwari, Bernadett Pályi, Dana Perkins, Kathrin Summermatter, Olivier Vandenberg, Kurt Zatloukal, Jonathan Ewbank 

A Perspective published in PLOS Biology on 18 March 2026, Measures to strengthen international biosafety and biosecurity practices, makes an argument most EBSA members will recognise: research on pandemic-prone pathogens is necessary, but its legitimacy rests entirely on how rigorously the risks are managed — and on being able to demonstrate that.

Led by Etienne Decroly (Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS) and Jonathan Ewbank (ERINHA/INSERM), the paper calls for harmonisation of international biosafety and biosecurity regulation, better procedures for risk assessment, and more active gatekeeping by funders, reviewers and journals. It points to the framework offered by ISO 35001:2019 and ISO/TS 5441:2024, urges adoption of the new MIHCLE reporting standard for BSL-3 and BSL-4 work, and floats a secure mechanism for sharing accidents, incidents and near-misses — alongside a "biological black box" for full accountability. It also warns that reduced funding for WHO will be felt hardest in low- and middle-income countries.

What stands out is the author list: twenty authors from thirteen countries across five continents, including a good number of EBSA members. This is not an EBSA paper, and doesn't claim to be — the authors state plainly that they write in a personal capacity. But it is a reminder of how widely our members' expertise circulates beyond our own conference and publications, and how readily people from very different systems can converge on a shared position.

A hat tip too to ERINHA, an EBSA corporate member, which Jonathan leads.

That is the lesson worth carrying forward. Laboratory risk does not respect borders, and the answers won't either. The more our members work across institutions, regions and disciplines, the stronger the case we can collectively make.

The paper is open access: doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003691