A global biosafety strategy research framework with specific implications for China

• Main Authors: Qin Qin, Youhai Sun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. 2019-09-01
• Series: Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2588933819300275

With accelerating environmental change, technological development, and socio-economic globalisation, the potential for biosafety crises in many countries has intensified, and the sources of harm have become more extensive. Using a visual literature analysis tool, we analysed biosafety strategy knowledge maps of individual authors, institutions, and keywords in literature published between 2009 and 2019. Our results reflected the research hotspots, frontiers, and future trends in this field and demonstrated the necessity and urgency of strengthening biosafety strategy research. Our results showed, first, that biosafety strategy research groups are tightly concentrated and widely dispersed, and already possess a group of key research representatives; second, although cooperation among countries is relatively close, the nodal research institutions in this field are relatively scattered and cooperation among them is not strong; and third, “biosecurity”, “infection”, “biosafety”, and “strategy”, among others, are high-frequency keywords used by many recent academic publications, while “tuberculosis”, “biological invasion”, and “nanoparticle” are keywords denoting the frontiers of research activity. In view of these, China should focus on accelerating the introduction of biosafety laws and regulations at the national level in the following years; increasing biosafety supervision; improving biological hazard response systems; strengthening cooperation and innovation among research institutions; improving scientific research review mechanisms; and strengthening biotechnology risk assessment research. Keywords: Biosafety, Biodefense, Strategy, Research framework, Bibliometric analysis