Dear Colleague,

The Open Philanthropy Project invites pre-proposals for risk assessment projects in the biosecurity and pandemic preparedness field. We believe infectious disease pandemics represent one of the biggest current risks to global welfare and stability, and the risks from engineered pandemics — whether via accidents or misuse — may grow in the future. We think more rigorous and comprehensive risk assessment tools will help the U.S. and other countries prevent and respond to the most serious biological threats facing the world. We are prepared to fund individual risk assessment projects at the $25K – $1M level. Full program details are available at www.openphil-rfp.org.

Pre-proposals should address one of the following two areas:

• Technology focused risk assessment – Key questions include: How will rapid advances in biotechnology, its global spread and decreasing barriers to access change the risk landscape in the coming years and decades?  What specific technologies or combinations of technologies present the greatest risks and why?
• Scenario focused risk assessment – Key questions include: What is a plausible worst case scenario that could be caused by an infectious disease outbreak? What is the relative probability that a pandemic will be caused by a deliberate attack, an accidental release or a naturally occurring infectious disease outbreak? What is the potential range of consequences we can expect to see from each type of event?

Pre-proposals are due May 12, 2017.

Please visit the program website at www.openphil-rfp.org to review the full guidelines, including pre-proposal submission instructions. Please direct questions to bpp_rfp@openphilanthropy.org.

Jaime Yassif, Ph.D.

Program Officer – Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness

www.OpenPhilanthropy.org