The first release of our far-UVC Blueprint
Seeking your feedback
Read the report here
About the report
The subject of the report is far-UVC—an emerging type of germicidal ultraviolet light that can inactivate a wide range of pathogens with minimal effects on human tissues. It offers immense promise for continuous disinfection in occupied spaces and improved air cleaning over current alternatives.
The report’s central purpose is to advance the far-UVC field. It does this through two approaches:
- Offering recommendations for answering critical questions facing far-UVC, and coordinating the field around them.
- Providing a comprehensive educational resource for capturing the current state of knowledge of far-UVC
It’s a culmination of nearly two years of work, consisting of an extensive review of published literature and hundreds of conversations with experts across multiple disciplines—photobiology, atmospheric chemistry, indoor air quality, building science, environmental engineering, epidemiology, public health, and many more.
The report examines far-UVC’s efficacy at inactivating pathogens within safe human exposure limits, its photobiological safety for skin and eyes, and potential concerns like ozone generation. It outlines key recommendations for accelerating development, including research priorities to establish effective installation designs, identify biological effects, understand indoor air quality impacts, and obtain real-world effectiveness evidence. The report also details current emitter technologies, regulatory frameworks, UVC’s effects on materials, and considers ozone mitigation strategies. Overall, the report suggests that far-UVC technology could be a significant advancement in airborne infection control if certain research priorities and implementation guidelines are addressed.
Before we publish the final version of the far-UVC Blueprint, we’re releasing an advanced draft—a preprint—with the aim of gathering feedback. Read more below about what we’re looking for.
A call for feedback
We deeply value feedback on this preprint, particularly around its set of recommendations. Even if this is your first time hearing about far-UVC, your input is essential for building consensus around what the best path forward for the technology is. Critical, multi-disciplinary engagement with our work, is how we develop, not just more rigorous, but more actionable recommendations for advancing far-UVC.
We are particularly interested in feedback that goes beyond high-level agreement or disagreement, and beyond small typos or fixes. We welcome critiques that challenge our assumptions, highlight missing considerations, or propose alternative approaches—especially those grounded in data, real-world constraints, or field expertise.
We’ve provided some hypothetical examples of feedback that would most help us improve our work, which focus on our recommendations and propose specific improvements. However, we are open to any feedback in any format. Submissions can be made using this form. For future rounds of editing, we’re looking to expand our pool of paid researchers. An expression of interest to participate in this program can be made alongside your feedback submission.
Our new newsletter, Far-UVC Field Notes
Coinciding with the launch of this preprint is the launch of our new far-UVC-specific newsletter called Field Notes. Field Notes will be dedicated to tracking and analyzing developments in the rapidly evolving field surrounding far-UVC. Each issue will document the progress of far-UVC and our work on it, as well as offer up a short news and notable research section. You can subscribe here.
What’s next
We formed this report’s recommendations with the expectation of playing an active role in their execution. We have begun the process of planning several of the report’s proposed follow-up studies, which include bioaerosol chamber studies, indoor air chemistry studies, safety studies, and randomized trials for measuring real-world effectiveness.
Supporting these efforts, we’re looking to hire a new senior role to build out an ambitious research program that will take the Far-UVC Blueprint’s recommendations and make them reality. We’re calling this effort Project Airborne Infection Resilience (AIR). See the job listing here.