The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Royal Society (RS), Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) will jointly organize three public symposia on synthetic biology in 2011-2012. The symposia will build on a successful 2009 collaboration between the Royal Society, NAS/NAE, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) when these organizations partnered to sponsor an international symposium in Washington, D.C. entitled, Opportunities and Challenges in the Emerging Field of Synthetic Biology. Following from that meeting, the NAS/NAE and the RS reached an agreement with the RAE and the CAS and CAE to hold three symposia – one in the U.K., one in China, and one in the U.S. – during 2011-2012. The RS/RAE will conduct the UK symposium, the CAS/CAE the China Symposium, and the NAS/NAE/NRC the USA symposium. An ad hoc NRC committee will plan and organize the U.S. symposium and will coordinate with and provide suggestions to the planners of the U.K. and Chinese symposia. Each symposium will feature invited presentations and discussions. An individually-authored summary of the three symposia will be prepared by a designated rapporteur and will go through report review and be published as a joint report of the six parties. Representatives from the U.K. and China will be included among the reviewers.