The Open Philanthropy Project awarded a grant of $2,744,000 to the UPMC Center for Health Security to support the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) for the next three years. This grant falls within Open Philanthropy's work on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, one of its focus areas within global catastrophic risks.
ELBI is a biosecurity leadership development and training program that focuses on early career professionals in the field and qualified people seeking to enter the field. ELBI recruits a class of approximately 28 fellows each year, runs meetings that expose the fellows to a broad range of biosecurity and pandemic preparedness sub-fields, and provides networking opportunities with their peers and senior experts. This grant is intended to support the continuation of this annual program and provide additional resources to run programs for the growing ELBI alumni network.