Ambiguous risk
A risk on which stakeholders legitimately disagree about values or the meaning of evidence. The IRGC recommends discourse-based management involving the groups with interests or value commitments at stake.
Anticipatory governance
A broad-based capacity across society to act on a variety of inputs, including foresight, to manage emerging technologies and risks while they can still be steered (after Guston, 2014).
Anticipatory innovation
In OECD OPSI usage, the ability of organisations to consistently perceive, understand and act on the future.
Anticipatory technology governance
The OECD’s approach (2024) built on five interdependent elements: embedding values, enhancing foresight and technology assessment, engaging stakeholders, agile and adaptive regulation, and international cooperation.
Backcasting
A method that starts from a preferred future and works backwards to identify the steps needed to reach it, used to overcome present bias in planning.
Complex global shock
In the UN Pact for the Future (2024), an event with severely disruptive and adverse consequences for a significant proportion of countries and the global population, with impacts across multiple sectors.
Concern assessment
In the IRGC framework, the part of risk appraisal that assesses stakeholders’ perceptions, concerns and the social and economic implications of a risk, alongside the technical risk assessment.
Critical risk
In the OECD framework, a threat or hazard that poses the most strategically significant risk because of its likelihood and the national significance of its disruptive consequences.
Critical risks
Threats and hazards that pose the most strategically significant risk because of their likelihood and the national significance of their disruptive consequences (OECD, 2014).
Declaration on Future Generations
Annex II of the Pact for the Future (2024), in which UN Member States commit to safeguard the needs and interests of future generations, including through strategic foresight and anticipatory planning.
Delphi method
A structured questioning technique that uses multiple anonymous rounds of questionnaires to gather, refine and structure the judgements of a panel of experts, measuring both consensus and diversity of views.
Disinformation
False or misleading information deliberately created or spread to deceive, often for strategic, political or financial gain, as the UN Global Principles describe.
Emerging critical risk
In the OECD’s draft revised Recommendation (2026), new risks or familiar risks evolving under new circumstances, such that existing risk management arrangements may be ill suited.
Future generations commissioner
An independent office that represents long-term interests in public decision-making. Wales’s Future Generations Commissioner monitors how public bodies apply the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015.
Geoeconomic fragmentation
A policy-driven reversal of global economic integration through restrictions on trade, capital, technology and migration. The IMF estimates trade fragmentation could cost up to 7% of global output in a severe scenario.
Geopolitical acts index
The GPR sub-index built from search categories on the beginning of war, escalation of war and terror acts.
Geopolitical risk
The threat, realisation and escalation of adverse events associated with wars, terrorism and any tensions among states and political actors that affect the peaceful course of international relations (Caldara and Iacoviello, 2022).
Geopolitical Risk Index
A monthly news-based index of the share of articles in ten major newspapers that discuss adverse geopolitical events and risks, normalised to 100 over 1985-2019, with threats and acts sub-indexes.
Geopolitical threats index
The GPR sub-index built from search categories on war threats, peace threats, military build-ups, nuclear threats and terror threats.
Global risk
An event or condition that, if it occurs, would cause significant harm across many countries and sectors at once, and that no single institution can manage alone. The WEF Global Risks Report tracks 33 such risks.
Global Risks Perception Survey
The World Economic Forum’s annual expert survey behind the Global Risks Report. The 2025-2026 round drew on over 1,300 experts who rated 33 global risks for severity on a 1-7 scale over two-year and ten-year horizons.
Horizon scanning
The systematic collection of insights on emerging trends, weak signals and developments that could affect an organisation or policy area (UK Government Office for Science).
Hybrid threat
Activities with malign intent that combine information manipulation, cyberattacks, economic coercion, covert political manoeuvring, coercive diplomacy or threats of military force (OECD draft revised Recommendation, 2026).
Information integrity
In UN usage, a pluralistic information space that champions human rights, peaceful societies and a sustainable future, where accurate, reliable information is available to all in an open, inclusive, safe and secure environment.
Misinformation
False or misleading information shared without the intent to deceive. It can still cause serious harm, for example when inaccurate health or emergency information spreads during a crisis.
Policy stress-testing
Testing policy, strategy or project options against a set of scenarios, trends or future events to see how well they hold up under a range of external conditions.
Pre-assessment
The first phase of the IRGC framework: identifying and framing a risk, including how different actors define the problem, before formal assessment begins.
Prebunking
Exposing people in advance to weakened examples of manipulation techniques so they can recognise them later. Field trials show short videos improve recognition of manipulation techniques at scale.
Risk characterisation and evaluation
The IRGC phase that judges whether a risk is acceptable, tolerable (pursued with risk reduction) or intolerable (to be avoided), combining evidence with societal values and other factors.
Risk governance
The application of the principles of good governance to the identification, assessment, management and communication of risks (IRGC).
Risk interconnection
A causal or reinforcing link between two global risks, such that one materialising raises the likelihood or severity of the other. The GRPS asks experts to map these links.
Risk management framework
In ISO 31000, the organisational foundations and arrangements that embed risk management, built around leadership and commitment with integration, design, implementation, evaluation and improvement.
Strategic foresight
A structured discipline for exploring several possible futures so that decisions made today are better prepared for change. The European Commission stresses that foresight is not about predicting or forecasting the future.
Systemic risk
Risk that arises from interdependencies within a system, so that a failure in one part can cascade across sectors or borders; the IRGC notes such risks require international coordination.
Systemic risk (DSA)
Under the EU Digital Services Act, wide-spread risks that very large platforms must identify and mitigate, including illegal content, threats to fundamental rights, media freedom, public security and electoral processes.
Three horizons
A framework that distinguishes the dominant present system (H1), the emerging pattern that could replace it (H3) and the transitional innovations between them (H2), used to explore pathways for transformation.
Very large online platform
Under the EU Digital Services Act, a platform or search engine with over 45 million monthly users in the EU, subject to obligations to assess and mitigate systemic risks.