November 24, 2021

HSP Publishes Work on Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) Awareness in Pakistan

Any research intended to benefit society that can be directly and immediately misapplied to cause harm is considered Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC). Due to rapid scientific and technical breakthroughs, DURC knowledge, oversight, and stakeholder involvement are becoming increasingly important. Since 2015, HSP has been working to raise awareness of DURC in Pakistan to accompany the country's strong growth in research. In 2016, HSP performed a survey to identify critical knowledge gaps, and based on these findings, prepared a DURC training manual (https://www.healthsecuritypartners.org/imo/media/doc/durc manual.pdf) for the Pakistani scientific community.  


Between July 2018 and January 2020, five DURC workshops were held using this training manual in Pakistan. These workshops were attended by personnel from universities providing postgraduate programs in life and medical sciences, and were designed to help participants understand DURC, assess their own research, decide if any of their studies constituted DURC, identify potential risks while performing research, and build strategies to manage the risks of conducting DURC. The Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity recently published this research, which was titled " Capacity Building for the Identification, Mitigation, and Communication of DURC in Pakistan: A Cross-Sectional Study", and is available online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2588933821000388.