b'VIEW POSITIONPAPERPriority QuestionsFOR MICROBIAL BIOFILMSThe Priority Questions for Microbial Biofilms exercise is a joint venture between NBIC, the Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE), Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), COST AMiCI Consortium and the ESCMID Study Group for Biofilms (ESGB). Together, we called on the international biofilm community to help us identify priority questions that, if answered, would make a considerable impact on the fundamentals of the field of microbial biofilms, to innovation in approaches to prevent, detect, manage and engineer biofilms, or which would be expected to have an impact in influencing policy makers and funders. Prior to this exercise there had not been an international and community-wide synthesis of key questions and priority research or innovation areas for the biofilm field. Such exercises can play a critical role in bridging the gap between the data generated by researchers, and the information needed by policymakers to make funding or regulatory decisions. We called for questions that are unanswered, could be answered (including through high-risk and blue-skies research), and that could be tackled by a research programme. Participants were asked to submit their questions anonymously in April 2021 and were also given the option to leave their contact details if interested in participating further with the activity. We received 309 questions in total, from across every continent, totalling 31 countries.The position paper, titled Global Challenges and Microbial Biofilms: Identification of Priority Questions in Biofilm Research, Innovation, and Policy, has now been published. This comprehensive study outlines aroadmap for advancing the field by identifying key research priorities.The team reviewed questions submitted by the international biofilm research community and practitioners across industry. To ensure an unbiased selection, computational approaches were used to group questions and manage the voting and selection process. The outcome is a set of 78 unique questions categorised into six key themes:1. Biofilm Control, Disruption, Prevention, Management, Treatment (13 questions)2. Resistance, Persistence, Tolerance, Role of Aggregation, Immune Interaction, Relevance to Infection (10 questions)3. Model Systems, Standards, Regulatory, Policy Education, Interdisciplinary Approaches (15 questions)4. Polymicrobial Interactions, Ecology, Microbiome, Phage (13 questions)5. Clinical Focus, Chronic Infection, Detection, Diagnostics (13 questions)6. Matrix, Lipids, Capsule, Metabolism, Development, Physiology, Ecology, Evolution, Environment, Microbiome, Community Engineering (14 questions)The research underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the need for standardised approaches in studying and managing biofilms. As microbial biofilms continue to affect various sectors, this prioritised agenda serves as a crucial tool in guiding efforts to harness their potential while mitigating their adverse effects. 31'