Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety, Biosecurity and Biorisk Management Through a Sustainable and Effective Education and Awareness System

Abstract

Education is the first step to create a society that respects the others and the environment and that works to design and build a peaceful future. An effective and sustainable education system could rely on a tailored methodology that synergizes self-evaluation, gap-analysis, and train-the-trainers methods. This combination allows gathering information about real needs and expectations of training targets, elaborating a made-to-measure educational program and training future educators on topics of interest, making education and awareness system sustainable. Using these methodologies, we set up a knowledge development and transfer of best practice system on biosafety/biosecurity/biorisk management, in order to spread awareness and know-how on these topics. Twenty-two countries, in four different regions (South East Europe, South East Asia, North and West Africa) were involved in the project titled “Knowledge development and transfer of best practice on biosafety, biosecurity and biorisk management”. National Experts (NEs) from each country have been trained by intensive and e-learning courses to improve learning efficacy, to raise awareness and to foster networking as well as best practice sharing within each region. Consequently, the trained NEs disseminated the knowledge in their own countries, tailoring the courses on their local needs and expectations, amplifying the educational impact of the project. Here, we review the methodologies applied to develop a sustainable education and awareness system and the training contents related to biosafety/biosecurity/biorisk management.