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UNESCO seeks the service of a ‘governmental or non-governmental organization’ to be contracted to develop (author), edit, peer-review, design and layout publication entitled ‘International Guidelines on Engineering Biology at Higher Education Level – A Toolkit for Policymakers’. The anticipated length is 80-90 pages.

The issue of building capacities in the basic sciences, to which interdisciplinary fields of engineering biology are included, has been faithfully articulated in the 12th and 13th proceedings and recommendation of the scientific board of the International Basic Science Programme of UNESCO, which outlined that there is a shortage of skills in fields that are driving the fourth industrial revolution, such as computer science, particle physics, biotechnology, and engineering. Moreover, APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) has put forward in 2022 the bio-circular-green economy as a cross-cutting, interconnected, and collaborative way of approaching environmental challenges, and engineering biology constitutes a principal component of this approach.

There are significant barriers to the application of synthetic biology that will have to be overcome before its full potential is realized. Some of these barriers include infrastructure development for bio‐manufacturing and the lack of clear regulatory policies on crops with edited genomes and intellectual property protection laws. In the case of medicine, a major hurdle to the successful translation of novel therapeutics could be its cost, with gene therapies currently costing millions of dollars which is beyond the reach of common people. One of the issues that need to be addressed is how synthetic biology or engineering biology in general is taught at universities and higher education institutes in the Asia-Pacific region and what are the guidelines for formulating such curriculum.

The international guidelines will assist the Member States to strengthen the level of advanced technological and digital competencies in various development sectors such as agriculture, food, medicine and industry which utilize various forms of engineering biology. It will therefore promote know-how and skills needed to fully participate in the ongoing changes to the creation, production, distribution, dissemination and access to diverse scientific knowledge and discovery, as stipulated in the Statutes of the International Basic Science Programme of UNESCO.   

The contractor is requested to carry out the following tasks: 

1.1 Establishing a Consortium of Experts whose task will be to design, develop and peer-review the international guideline on Engineering Biology at Higher Education Level. The consortium could contain members of at least 3 peer-reviewers from various academic institutions in Asia Pacific as well as abroad and should also contain members of UNESCO’s various category II centres and university chairs who are working on the subject of engineering biology as well as contain a scientific/technical editor and graphic designer.

1.2 Organization of one Stakeholder Meeting (online and/or in person) whose purpose is to agree on the framework of how the international guidelines ought to be formulated and presented and the organization of two follow up meetings to monitor progress of work.

1.3 Drafting of the International Guidelines: Ensuring that the guidelines comply with the UNESCO Style Manual such as terminology, abbreviations, acronyms and format of footnotes, etc.; and will streamline UNESCO’s gender strategy, ensuring the Gender-Neutral Language is applied throughout the guidelines.  

• By 30 July 2024, the contractor will submit a list of the expert consortium who have agreed to be part of this project, a list of 3 peer-reviewers who will agree to revise/peer-review the pre-final document and a scientific/technical editor and graphic designer to homogenize the texts, make sure the language is appropriate for the targeted audience.
• ·By 10 June 2025, the contractor will submit a blueprint of the guidelines which should contain an attractive design and layout of 80-90 pages, as well as the minutes of the stakeholder meeting (physical and online) and the two follow up meetings
• By 1 September 2025, the contractor will submit the final guidelines, and all financial statements pertaining to the production of the document.

Bangkok, Thailand (international travels maybe required to invite experts from abroad for stakeholder meetings)

• Accredited government or non-government organization with track record of design of guidelines and policy briefs in the area of molecular biology and engineering biology for the last 5-10 years;
• Be familiar with the UNESCO International Basic Science Programme;  
• Strong administrative capacity in organizing expert meetings.
• Excellent capacity in the use of English language as working language to organize meetings and to drafting of reports.

Interested organizations are invited to submit to UNESCO Bangkok the application package including 

• A technical proposal illustrating how the tasks will be carried out, 
• A detailed financial proposal indicating rate per task. 

Your application package is to be sent no later than 10 August 2024, 18:00 Bangkok time (GMT+7). (Deadline extended)

To the attention of:  
Mr Ahmed Fahmi 
UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok 
Email: a.fahmi(at)unesco.org

#CallForProposals