The Tianjin Biosecurity Guidelines for Codes of Conduct for Scientists
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Health Security, the InterAcademy Partnership and the Tianjin University Center for Biosafety Research and Strategy prepared the “Tianjin Biosecurity Guidelines for Codes of Conduct for Scientists“. These guidelines have been presented and discussed at several workshops.
The guidelines emphasize the importance of mitigating risks associated with advanced life science research and technology and are high-level principles that serve as a reference for a broad range of stakeholders to develop or amend national- or institutional-level codes of conduct, practices, protocols, or regulations. Inspired by the Hague Ethical Guidelines that were developed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Tianjin Biosecurity Guidelines emerged from foundational work by China and Pakistan in 2015, and were further developed collaboratively by InterAcademy Partnership leaders, Tianjin University’s Centre for Biosafety Research and Strategy, and Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security, with input from scientists from 20 geographically diverse countries.
We hope that these guidelines will be useful to our members and that they will serve as a starting point for institutional discussions.
