The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Horizon scanning is the systematic search for early signs of change: weak signals, emerging issues and trends that have not yet reached the policy agenda. Its value depends less on how much is collected than on the quality and diversity of sources, the discipline of review, and whether an institution has a route from signal to decision. This page sets out how scanning succeeds and fails inside institutions, what can be measured about it, and who must act on what it finds.
Horizon scanning · Horizon 2040 · Round 4
| Insurers exit high-risk postcodes | Finance | Medium | High | Protection retreat |
| Cheap sensors in informal settlements | Technology | High | Medium | Citizen data |
| Heat limits outdoor work hours | Labour | Medium | High | Heat economy |
| Synthetic media in elections | Information | Low | High | Trust erosion |
impact vs uncertainty
Fig.Horizon scanning board. Design wireframe with placeholder names and illustrative values, not a record or a live system.
Horizon scanning is the systematic search for early signs of change: weak signals, emerging issues and trends that have not yet reached the policy agenda. Its value depends on the quality and diversity of sources, disciplined review and whether an institution has a route to escalate what it finds.
For horizon scanning, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, flood water and night lights with clouds now from NASA GIBS, framed on the Arctic; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For horizon scanning, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, flood water and night lights with clouds now from NASA GIBS, framed on the Arctic; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
Signals, emergence and source quality. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
An emerging issue first appears as an anomaly, a niche publication, a fringe practice or a change in a small market. Its weakness is the point: by the time evidence is strong, the options to shape the issue have narrowed.
Scans drawn from the same journals, the same experts and the same languages reproduce the institution's existing view. Diverse sources, rated for provenance and reliability, are what let a scan see what others miss.
Review panels screen signals for plausibility, novelty and potential impact. Groupthink, hierarchy and the pull of the current crisis tend to filter out exactly the signals that challenge prevailing assumptions.
A signal matters only when it reaches someone with a mandate. Scanning that ends in a report without an owner, a review date or a decision forum is observation without anticipation.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Weak signal | An early, ambiguous indication of a change that may grow in significance. |
| Emerging issue | A development not yet widely recognised that could affect policy if it grows. |
| Signal register | A structured log of scanned signals with source, date, reliability and review status. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Signals logged per scanning cycle | count of signals | per cycle | Scanning register | REPORTED |
| Source diversity of the register | share of signals by source type, region and language | per cycle | Register metadata | REPORTED |
| Signals with a provenance and reliability rating | share of logged signals | per cycle | Register audit | REPORTED |
| Signals escalated to a decision forum | count per review | quarterly | Review panel minutes | OFFICIAL |
| Lead time from first signal to policy agenda | months | per issue, retrospective | Retrospective case review | ESTIMATED |
| Retrospective relevance of past scans | share of past signals that developed into issues | annual | Back-review of earlier registers | ESTIMATED |
| Breadth of the expert and practitioner network | persons by sector and region | annual | Network roster | DECLARED |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| WEF Global Risks Report and Global Risks Perception Survey | Annual survey of perceived global risks over short and long horizons, with the survey method published | WEF terms of use, attribution |
| UN Global Risk Report (UN Futures Lab) | System-wide survey of risk perception and preparedness across UN entities and partners | United Nations terms of use |
| European Commission Strategic Foresight Reports and the JRC Megatrends Hub | Annual foresight reports and a maintained catalogue of megatrends with supporting evidence | EU reuse policy, CC BY 4.0 |
| OECD Strategic Foresight Unit publications | Global strategic foresight outlooks, disruption scans and method notes | OECD terms, open access with attribution |
| UK Government Office for Science futures reports | Published trend analyses and horizon-scanning outputs for government | Open Government Licence |
| Policy Horizons Canada | Federal foresight studies and published horizon-scanning outputs | Open Government Licence, Canada |
| Metaculus question records | Public questions on emerging issues with resolution criteria and aggregated community forecasts | Metaculus terms of use |
Foresight Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet offices and centre-of-government strategy units | Which emerging issues warrant ministerial attention, an owner and a review date | Rated signals with provenance, the reasons for escalation and what would confirm or weaken them |
| Civil contingencies secretariats that own national risk assessments | Whether an emerging issue enters the national risk register or a watch list | Signal histories, plausibility reasoning and the gap between the issue and existing risk categories |
| Central bank financial stability departments and prudential regulators | Which emerging exposures merit supervisory monitoring or a thematic review | Signals on new instruments, technologies and concentrations with their sources rated |
| Parliamentary committees for the future | Which emerging issues to examine in hearings and inquiries | Signal reviews that show the evidence, its quality and the institutions with a stake |
Change usually appears first at the margins: in specialist literature, patent filings, start-up activity, local events, social media and the views of practitioners close to the problem. These weak signals are ambiguous and easily dismissed. Scanning gathers them systematically, describes them consistently and looks for patterns across domains. The common framework of social, technological, economic, environmental and political drivers helps ensure breadth.
The main failure modes are cognitive and institutional. Scanners see what they expect, prominent sources crowd out marginal ones, and results pile up in reports without reaching decision-makers. Diverse scanning teams, explicit challenge of assumptions and links to specific decisions improve results. Digital tools, including text mining and machine learning, extend reach but bring their own biases toward what is already well documented.
Structured templates record each signal, its source, date and possible implications.
Criteria for credibility, independence and evidence type help separate signal from noise.
Workshops and analytic methods group signals into emerging issues, informed by complex systems and agent-based modelling.
Weak signals are by nature uncertain, many never develop, and important change can arrive without warning. Automated scanning favours well-documented topics.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.