The growing field of biorisk prevention faces a critical challenge: while numerous activities aim to reduce threats from biological sources, there's no systematic way to determine which interventions remain effective across different scenarios and ethical priorities. This gap matters because misallocated resources could mean failing to prevent a global catastrophe. Without clear robustness criteria, the field risks focusing on interventions that only work under narrow assumptions while neglecting more universally valuable approaches.

A Framework for Evaluating Prevention Strategies

One way to address this could involve creating a systematic analysis of biorisk prevention activities to identify which maintain effectiveness across various plausible scenarios. This would involve:

• Cataloging current prevention activities
• Defining different threat emergence scenarios
• Identifying key ethical assumptions
• Developing robustness evaluation criteria
• Scoring activities based on cross-scenario performance

The framework would help policymakers, research funders, and biotech companies prioritize strategies that work under diverse conditions, from different pathogen characteristics to varying ethical priorities like risk tolerance.

Implementation and Advantages

An execution plan might begin with a literature review and framework development, followed by analysis of key prevention strategies. A minimum viable product could test the approach with just 3-5 high-profile strategies against limited scenarios.

This approach offers several advantages over existing risk assessments:

• Direct comparison of prevention methods rather than just evaluating risks
• Explicit testing against diverse future scenarios
• Standardized methodology that can be updated as new threats emerge

While primarily an academic/policy tool, potential applications could include customized analyses for organizations or training programs on robust strategy development. The framework's adaptability and transparency could make it particularly valuable for aligning diverse stakeholder interests in biosecurity.