This sounds super exciting! Despite working in biosecurity field-building, for some reason running paper-writing competitions never occurred to me, but I think this seems like a promising direction to point biosecurity-keen students towards.
You mentioned that writing the paper took 40-60 hours, but what about the time commitment for reading papers / talking with experts?
Good question. That estimate was for our entire process of producing the paper, including any relevant research. We wrote on a topic that somewhat overlapped with areas we already knew a bit about, so I can imagine there’d be extra hours if you write on something you’re less familiar with. Also, I generally expect that the time investment might vary a lot between groups, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on my rough estimate. Cheers!
This sounds super exciting! Despite working in biosecurity field-building, for some reason running paper-writing competitions never occurred to me, but I think this seems like a promising direction to point biosecurity-keen students towards.
You mentioned that writing the paper took 40-60 hours, but what about the time commitment for reading papers / talking with experts?
Hi James!
Good question. That estimate was for our entire process of producing the paper, including any relevant research. We wrote on a topic that somewhat overlapped with areas we already knew a bit about, so I can imagine there’d be extra hours if you write on something you’re less familiar with. Also, I generally expect that the time investment might vary a lot between groups, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on my rough estimate. Cheers!
In case you (or anyone else) is interested, there’ll be a panel discussion with a few biosecurity experts this Thursday: 2022 Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition: How can modern science help develop effective verification protocols to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention? A Conversation with the Experts.