INTELLIGENCE VALUE
The B24IC program will inspire and enable IARPA and the wider intelligence community to pursue novel, emerging, and high-risk research concepts which have the potential to provide the community with an overwhelming advantage in collection, analysis, and security.
SUMMARY
IARPA established the B24IC program in 2022 to meet Executive, Intelligence, and Defense needs identified in United States Government (USG) strategy documents. The program will pursue and cultivate innovation-spanning biointelligence and biosecurity research opportunities which will advance collection, detection, attribution, security, and analysis capabilities. The research efforts pursued under B24IC will drive capabilities aimed at preventing traditional biothreats, while also innovating to address the rapidly advancing synthetic biology and biotechnology environments.
The aim of the B24IC seedling program is to explore and identify biological technologies to provide an intelligence advantage. The objectives are to develop new methods to detect, collect, analyze, and prevent traditional biological threats, and to identify new opportunities and vulnerabilities from biotechnology and synthetic biology advances. To accomplish the goal, the B24IC program uses two broad topics to guide the areas of research: biointelligence and biosecurity.
- Biointelligence: Instruments, knowledge, and/or methods enhancing the Intelligence Community’s (IC’s) ability to counter inappropriate use of biological sciences or leverage advancements derived from the biological sciences to advance the IC’s ability to collect, analyze, characterize, secure, and utilize information related to national threats.
- Biosecurity: Methods to ensure the security of instruments, knowledge, environments, or capabilities aligned with biological research, or advancements which have the potential to cause harm or detrimentally impact other organisms, materials, or infrastructure.
Biological technologies are emerging at a pace beyond many other physical science disciplines. Previous biological limitations are being overcome through a convergence with modern engineering, physical sciences, and advances in information science. B24IC is pursing numerous topics aligned with the convergence of biotechnology with other fields in alignment with the topics of biointelligence and biosecurity.
B24IC is a 24-month long super-seedling program with a May 2025 end date.
