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From 21 to 23 August 2026, the finals of the 5th SynBio Challenges (the Synthetic Biology Innovation Competition) were held at Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology. Two student teams mentored by faculty members of our School of International Organizations (SIO), Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), delivered outstanding performances in the "Responsible Innovation in Life Sciences" track, with both teams winning Gold Awards.

The competition was organized by the Chinese Society of Biotechnology and co-organized by Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology, the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SIAT), the Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, the Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Association, the National Industrial Innovation Center for Bio-manufacturing and the Alliance of Open Life Science. It is also one of the first initiatives endorsed under the UNESCO International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development. Drawing 512 teams and 3,849 young talents from nine countries, including China, Brazil, Russia, Japan and Singapore, and generating nearly 30 million topic engagements across domestic and international platforms, this year's competition set a new record in scale. A total of six tracks were offered, among which the "Responsible Innovation in Life Sciences" track encouraged young participants to examine the ethical and social responsibilities behind technology.

Team "to be or not to be" was formed by Xu Xinyue, Liu Changtong, Chen Dayi and Zou Fuxuan, graduate students of the School's 2025 intake, together with Chen Bokai, a doctoral student at China Foreign Affairs University, and Bo Haoyu, an undergraduate at Tongji University. Under the research title "Global Anticipatory Governance of Emerging Biotechnology Risks—A Case Study of Mirror Life", the team took mirror life, a subject of much recent debate, as a case study to explore the role international organizations could play in building anticipatory biosecurity governance systems. Through policy document analysis and process tracing, combined with participant observation at relevant science and technology conferences and interviews with experts from international organizations such as the UN Secretary-General's Scientific Advisory Board and NTI, the team traced how mirror biology has been constructed and has evolved from frontier research into a matter of international governance concern. The study concludes that, in the face of highly uncertain technological risks that have not yet materialized, international coordination mechanisms are indispensable—mechanisms capable of fostering science–policy dialogue, reducing strategic miscalculation, accommodating divergent views and achieving anticipatory governance.

Team "ABS-olutely Confused", composed of Su Zhuoping, Shi Yilin, Tian Xiaoyang and Liu Chenyang, graduate students of the School's 2025 intake, addressed the topic "Rethinking Access and Benefit-Sharing for Genetic Resources in the Digital Age". The research centered on the coordination dilemmas among the four access-and-benefit-sharing (ABS) mechanisms under the United Nations framework, with particular attention to the impact of digital sequence information (DSI) and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) on traditional ABS governance. Building on solid interview research with officials of international organizations and with experts and scholars engaged in such instruments as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol, the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (the BBNJ Agreement), the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture—combined with literature analysis—the team found that differences in institutional logic among these rules and distributional conflicts among stakeholders have long hampered coordination across mechanisms. The study argues that, although the prospect of a unified and coordinated ABS governance system remains dim, practical exploration can still be advanced by good-faith actors taking the lead, while digital tools can be leveraged to improve governance effectiveness and open up space for improving ABS-related mechanisms.

Both research projects were supervised by Bao Yuhan, a faculty member of our School. Building on a systematic study of the theories of global biosecurity governance, the students focused on frontier issues in the governance of emerging technologies and conducted solid interviews and research by drawing on methods from public policy, international relations and the study of international organizations. Their work showcased the interdisciplinary research capacity, broad academic vision and sharp problem-awareness of SIO students. In the preliminary round, both teams advanced to the on-site finals with high-quality research reports; at the final defense presentations, they claimed Gold Awards with rigorous research and fluent English delivery, demonstrating the outstanding caliber of BFSU's SIO students.

Beyond the academic competition, the students actively broadened their practical horizons. They engaged in dialogue with participating experts and scholars and made on-site visits to the Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Infrastructure, the Industrial Innovation Center for Engineering Biology, LINK SPIDER and other frontier innovation institutions, gaining first-hand insight into the research, development and industrialization of emerging biotechnologies and deepening their understanding of how technological innovation and governance can advance in tandem. Taking this achievement as a new starting point, SIO students will continue to follow the frontiers of global science and technology governance, respond to the questions of our era with the wisdom of youth, and bring Chinese approaches and the voice of China to the international stage amid the wave of emerging technologies.