Shared risks have no single owner
River basins, grids, supply corridors and digital systems cross jurisdictions. No ministry, regulator or operator can govern them alone, and gaps between mandates are where failures spread.
The Global Risks Forum (GRF) is a Swiss association and public-good institution that brings leaders and institutions together on shared risk. It convenes councils and dialogues through the year and governs Nexus Universe, the annual programme designed so that selected work is built, tested and learned from before a crisis does the testing.
Convening networkThe Consortium Secretariat's links to the six programme regions; cells shaded by distance to each region's population-weighted anchor. Not venues or commitments.
The Global Risks Forum (GRF) is an independent Swiss association and a steward of the Consortium with GCRI. It convenes leaders and institutions through the year and governs Nexus Universe, the annual programme.
GRF · Programme
Consortium · Governance · Councils · Dialogues · Programme year · Platforms · Standards · Reports · Take part · Universe year · Action Week · Handoffs · Programme states · The programme year · A national mission · Mission admission · Data and resources qualified · Build accepted for exercise · Action Week · Stand-down and evidence sealed · Publication authorised · Correction · The Nexus cycle · National Nexus · Regional programmes and shared · Working groups · Competence Cells and CERT · Joining as institution · Governance dialogues · Nexus Reports · Risk Academy · Finance readiness · The Nexus Consortium · Universe cycle in twenty-seven · Annual cycle as executable · Correction · Founding and institutional establishment · Consortium formation lifecycle · Constitutional amendment · Independent review and appeal · Correction and contestability · Registry entry · Governance body charter and · Succession · Public interest and anti-capture · External authority hand-off · Funding · Public transparency · Nexus Universe gates G0 · Forming the annual agenda · Institutional membership of the · Leadership pathway to the · Public-authority interface and delegation · Annual Nexus Universe operating · Public participation campaign and · Programme governance · Policy cycle · Deliberation · Exercise cycle · Cross-border dialogue · Convening · Working group
Prepared for a year, built in a month, tested in a week and stood down in a day, with each gate recorded by GRF.
The programme year · Decision rights · Programme governanceAn outline of how the work is designed to run; it does not report the status of any decision or record.
A heatwave strains a power grid, a hospital and a food supply at the same time. A cyber incident in one country halts ports and payments in several. The institutions that must respond are divided by mandate, sector and border, and they rarely practise together before the moment they need each other.
River basins, grids, supply corridors and digital systems cross jurisdictions. No ministry, regulator or operator can govern them alone, and gaps between mandates are where failures spread.
Roles, data-sharing and decision rights are often agreed only after an emergency begins. Institutions that have never tested their arrangements discover the weaknesses at the worst time.
Conferences produce statements, not commitments that anyone can follow up. Without records of what was agreed, by whom and with what dissent, the same questions return every year.
What it answers for
Risk management
Governance, leadership, preparedness and the annual programme that brings institutions together to test decisions before a crisis does.
Legal form and limits
The Nexus systems are operated at national and regional level by Nexus Consortiums through their host and lead organizations, within a multilateral programme led by three pillar not-for-profit institutions: The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), The Global Risks Forum (GRF) and The Global Risks Alliance (GRA), on a public-private-planet partnership.
| Institution | Leads on | Where to go |
|---|---|---|
| Global Risks Forum (GRF) | Leadership, institutional dialogue and governance of the Nexus Universe programme | About GRF |
| The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), through GCRI US in Washington, DC and GCRI Canada in Ontario | Research, development and policy research; GCRI Canada leads the Consortium as its Secretariat and global contracting party | About GCRI |
| Global Risks Alliance (GRA) | Translating risk evidence into the questions finance, insurance and development institutions ask, never an approval | Finance readiness at GRA |
Where people live, night-time lights and the floods and fires that public institutions answer to, from NASA satellites, with elevation and live natural events. Switch layers, draw an area and export an image with its citations.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Layers 2
People and hazards
Keyboard, with the map focused
Hold Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll to zoom
Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
Loading the latest NASA imagery.
Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
People and hazards, framed on the Rhine and the Alps.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Layers and dates
The sectors a policy on drought has to coordinate: a choice in one ministry lands in the others.
Choose a context
Sectors · DroughtStress
Pillars · DroughtKPI
In this contextDependence or handoff, heavier is strongerOutside this context
Programme yearAll phases
Context
Drought
Low river flows cut irrigation, cooling water and hydropower at once; food prices, nutrition and ecosystems follow.
W · E · I · F · H · B
Risk
Hover a corner, a line or a row to trace it across both sides.
Route
Applied to drought
L · F · U · S · R · A
Response
Expected value
Hover a pillar, a line or a row to read how it is applied.
A: a teaching cascade (shock 0.6, gain 0.35, four rounds) over teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements. B: illustrative applications and the KPI each pillar answers for; values are published benchmarks, cited, not forecasts. Open events: NASA EONET, live.
Choose the layers, hazards and area a decision rests on, then build. The run shows each step and its source, and the map shows where people and systems are exposed now.
Sources: NASA GIBS, NASA EONET, USGS earthquakes, Open-Meteo (ECMWF, Copernicus GloFAS and CAMS), Natural Earth. Coupling weights are teaching values; scores are illustrative, not an assessment.
How stress spreads along a river that six countries share, from the Alps to the North Sea delta, on real geography with elevation: the Rhine at baseline, in a summer of heat and low water, and in an Alpine flood travelling downstream. Select a scenario. The levels are examples, not results.
FieldThe Rhine basin from the Alps to the delta under a low-water or flood scenario. Real geography. The levels are illustrative, not results.
Six countries share the Rhine, with ministries, navigation authorities, operators, utilities and cities along it. Each holds part of the decision when the river fails. The Forum is where they agree before it does.
A dry, hot summer lowers the river: barges sail part-loaded, power stations lose cooling water, and water supply and ecosystems compete for the same flow. No single authority holds the whole problem. A council can agree in advance who acts when.
Heavy rain on snow fills the Alpine lakes and sends a floodwave downstream across borders. What a council agreed, and what the programme year rehearsed, decides whether the upstream warning reaches the delta in time.
A year of preparation, a month of build and one week of controlled action. Three ways to take part, each with clear limits.
Nexus Universe is the annual operating, integration, exercise and learning programme of Nexus Consortiums. It is not a conference, a trade show, a procurement fair or a funding platform. GRF governs it. GCRI provides its technical office.
Mandate, calls, admissions and qualified inputs.
Missions built on the shared environment, readiness evidenced.
Ten tracks under exercise control.
Review, publication and the decisions that renew the agenda.
Eight gates, G0 to G7, each a recorded GRF decision. No edition is on record yet. The calendar is the design of the year.
| Decision | Gate | What is decided | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| The annual mandate | G0 | Scope, participating structures, evaluation questions and publication intentions of an edition | Never sets a national agenda |
| Mission admission | G1 | Which missions enter the edition, with reasons recorded | Cannot admit a mission without an accountable owner |
| Gate decisions | G0 to G7 | A recorded decision at every gate. A gate not passed stops the work it governs | A programme decision, never a public-authority approval, a certification or a deployment authorisation |
| Publication authorisation | G6 | Publication of results that have passed scientific and editorial review | Cannot publish personal data |
GRF holds direction and admission. GCRI's technical office runs the simulation environment. Evaluation is assigned to people who did not design the scenario.
The programme has its own Nexus Universe website; the Nexus Universe gateway on this site sets out how GRF governs it.
Each programme area is designed to bring together the authorities, operators and experts who share a risk, so that roles are clarified and arrangements are tested before they are needed.
Dialogues among leaders and institutions through the year, each producing a record of what was agreed and what remains open.
National and institutional risk oversight, continuity, early warning and anticipatory action, with roles agreed in advance.
Coordination between public authorities, operators and humanitarian actors across response and recovery.
Institutions responsible for adaptation, nature and transboundary environmental priorities, working from shared evidence.
Human oversight, accountability and rights in the use of AI and digital public systems.
Cross-border and public health responsibilities, and the continuity of health systems that depend on power, water and supply chains.
Controlled scenarios with simulation marking, independent evaluators and after-action learning.
Structured years for leaders and institutions: baselines, contribution plans, quarterly work and a reviewed next step.
The annual mandate, mission admission, gate decisions and the publication of outcome records.
Each offer, what it involves and what is available now is set out on Programmes. The technical basis for this work comes from GCRI's programmes.
Most routes begin with an enquiry to the Secretariat and a conversation about scope. Cooperation with public authorities never depends on buying a membership tier.
Bring a shared risk to a dialogue or propose an exercise. Your institution keeps its own authority throughout.
Define a cross-border question for the annual agenda, using your own authorised instruments.
Ask about nomination to the Leadership Council at councils@globalriskforum.com; selection comes before any contribution.
Find a bounded assignment in a working group or a specialist platform, matched to your competence.
Join through a constituency council with a contribution plan and declared interests.
Propose a venue or support at partnerships@globalriskforum.com, under written safeguards: hosting is not ownership and sponsorship is not authority.
Open now: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference. Applications, contributions, computing allocations and event registration open only when their team, terms and review capacity are in place. See what each step creates on Participate and how GRF keeps itself accountable on Governance and trust.
The Forum's platforms meet GCRI's science and GRA's finance in common fields. Trace a field across the three institutions, then follow it into the Standards councils adopt, the Academy's courses for officials and the Reports that keep the record.
GRF · 1
GCRI · 4
GRA · 0
GRF · 1
GCRI · 1
GRA · 0
GRF · 1
GCRI · 2
GRA · 1
GRF · 3
GCRI · 2
GRA · 2
GRF · 1
GCRI · 0
GRA · 0
GRF · 3
GCRI · 2
GRA · 1
GRF · 1
GCRI · 0
GRA · 0
GRF · 2
GCRI · 2
GRA · 1
GRF · 1
GCRI · 2
GRA · 3
GRF · 1
GCRI · 0
GRA · 3
GRF · 1
GCRI · 0
GRF · 1
GCRI · 0
GRA · 0
GRF · 2
GCRI · 1
GRA · 0
GRF · 2
GCRI · 8
GRF · 1
GCRI · 1
GRA · 2
GRF · 1
GCRI · 3
GRF · 1
GCRI · 2
GRA · 2
GRF · 1
GCRI · 2
GRA · 0
GRF · 1
GCRI · 2
GRA · 3
GRF · 1
GCRI · 5
GRF · 1
GCRI · 2
GRA · 1
GRF · 1
GCRI · 2
GRA · 0
GRF · 1
GCRI · 4
GRA · 1
RegistryOpen
The governance standards and shared vocabulary councils and authorities can adopt in their own jurisdictions.
Learning22 courses open
Courses for officials and leaders on risk governance, preparedness and the policy cycle.
EvidenceCorrections open
The public record of dialogues, exercises and the annual programme's outcomes.
IndexValues forming
The anchor data pipeline and indexing system for all risk data, built on Nexus Standards.
The Index is the Consortium's indexing system for risk data. Every indicator, hazard, series and country profile carries its Nexus Standards identifier, its source and its licence, so what this page shows can be traced, corrected and reused.
Every country profile carries the source and licence of each value. Correct a value or reply
Open layers on an equal-area hexagon grid, shown as densities per km² or as symbols: People · GHSL 2025People · WorldPop 2025Built-up areaPortsAirportsRoadsRailwaysRivers and lake centrelines
/api/v1/public/grix · https://nexustandards.com/uni/{uni}
Developers · Data · Made with Natural Earth, Public domain; GHSL and WorldPop, CC BY 4.0
Snapshot of the Index registries pinned 2026-10-23 · 22c6eed. Research and risk-analytics information: not a rating, an official classification, a warning, a benchmark or advice.
The Secretariat confirms the right route, the scope of useful work and the conditions for any further step. An enquiry receives a reference; it does not create membership, an appointment or a commitment.
Start from who you are. Answer an open call. Or form and lead a competence cell.
Ministries, statistics offices and agencies: a national desk and chapter, and a seat in the working groups. National chapters
Operators, regulators, banks, insurers and professional bodies whose work touches systemic risk. Participate
Draft, review and adopt the methods and data standards with the working groups. Working groups
Universities, civil society and individual experts: projects, data and review. Write to the team
| Open call | Seeks | Closes |
|---|---|---|
| Founding call for experts to the working groups CALL-FOUNDING-EXPERTS | expert, editor, chair | 2026-12-15 |
| Open nomination for the three independent expert seats of the Global Standards Council CALL-GSC-IND | council-member | 2026-12-01 |
| Nominations of interim regional members (applies only if the transitional provision is decided) CALL-GSC-REG | council-member | 2026-12-15 |
| Review of the wave-1 risk core outlines (C1, C2, C3, C4, C8, C10, C11) CALL-REVIEW-WAVE1 | contributor | 2027-01-31 |
| Experts for the core standards of risk science: uncertainty and evidence grading, scales, structured expert judgement, tolerability, extremes and compound events, catastrophic and existential risk, ethics and equity, units and measurement (NRS-C17 to NRS-C24) CALL-CORE-SCIENCE | expert, editor, chair | 2027-01-31 |
| Independent reviewers for the families of the hazard atlas, three from at least two regions for each family (NHS2-R19), priority families first CALL-ATLAS-REVIEW | expert | 2027-03-31 |
| Members of the interim Frontier Safety Review Panel and red-team reviewers (biosafety and biosecurity, AI safety and security, critical-infrastructure security); applications treated in confidence CALL-FRONTIER-SAFETY-REVIEW | expert | 2026-11-30 |
| Experts in ontology, metrology, software verification and conformity assessment for the requirement register, the NHS-2 machine representation, the conformance test suites and the conformity assessment scheme CALL-CONFORMANCE-ONTOLOGY | expert, editor | 2027-01-31 |
Calls past their closing date are hidden automatically. Every call, proposal and route: open areas and calls.
Bring together three to seven people with complementary skills: data, field practice, policy and communication.
Write to the team with the cell's name, members, area and region. You receive a reference and a contact. Write to the team
Pick one focus: research and evidence, data and maps, standards review, or community preparedness.
Follow shared study paths at Risk Academy, with practice and certificates of completion. Hazards and resilience
Hold regular sessions. Publish what the cell learns through Nexus Reports. Bring findings to the working groups. Working groups
What a national team or a local community can do on The Global Risks Index (GRIx) today.
Open risk profiles for 195 countries, with sources and licences on every value. Open the Index
Correct a value or reply for your country. The change is logged with its effect. Open the Index