Institutional learning
Institutions improve when they examine what happened, including what went wrong. This collection is where The Global Risks Forum (GRF) is designed to publish reflections from its dialogues, council years and annual Nexus Universe cycles: what worked, what did not, what GRF got wrong and what it changed. Items are published with participants' consent and without exposing anyone to blame. No learning item has been released yet, because the activities they would draw on are not yet on record.
- 01InstitutionThe Global Risks Forum (GRF)
- 02Service levelR0: information and enquiries
- 03In briefThe short answer
- 04SourcesWhere lessons come from
- 05Learning frameSingle-loop and double-loop learning
- 06BarriersWhy lessons are identified but not learned
- 07StandardHow a learning item is written
GRF · Institution · service level R0
The short answer.
Institutional learning at GRF is the collection of reflections from its dialogues, council years and annual Nexus Universe cycles: what worked, what did not, what GRF got wrong and what it changed. Items are published with participants' consent and without exposing anyone to blame, and they interpret records without replacing them.
Jurisdictions in Europe.
The jurisdictions that hold authority over this question: countries, their first-level divisions and capitals, shown for Europe as an example geography for this subject.
Where lessons come from.
Process lessons
How framing, participation and recording worked in practice, drawn from dialogue records.
Leadership lessons
What the structured council year revealed about contribution, mentoring and review.
After-action learning
Improvement items from Nexus Universe after-action records, which return to the next annual agenda.
Single-loop and double-loop learning.
Organisational learning theory distinguishes single-loop learning, which corrects actions within existing rules, from double-loop learning, which questions the rules themselves. After a flood, raising a levee is single-loop; asking why development kept moving into the floodplain is double-loop. Learning notes are written to say which kind of lesson they carry, because the owner and the time to act differ.
Why lessons are identified but not learned.
| Barrier | Countermeasure |
|---|---|
| Blame culture | Notes describe systems, not individuals |
| No owner | Each lesson is assigned before the note is published |
| Turnover | Lessons are written into plans and training, not memory |
| Repeat findings | Notes check earlier records for the same lesson |
How a learning item is written.
- 01
Describe, then reflect
What happened, from the record, before any interpretation.
- 02
Name GRF's part
Where GRF's own decisions contributed to a problem, the item says so.
- 03
Protect people
No individual is identified as responsible for a failure without consent and due process.
- 04
State the change
What GRF changed as a result, and how that change will be checked.
Adverse findings are kept. A learning collection that contains only successes would not be learning.
What each learning item is designed to answer.
- Did the activity answer the question it set out to answer, and if not, why not?
- Were the right institutions and constituencies present, and whose voice was missing?
- Did the record reflect what happened, including dissent?
- Did GRF's safeguards hold: conflicts, sponsorship, safeguarding and corrections?
- Which commitments were followed up, and which were not?
Learning is not a substitute for records.
Learning items interpret records; they never replace them. Dialogue records are on Dialogue outcomes, edition records on Evidence and outcomes, and GRF's yearly account on the annual institutional review. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) runs its own learning programmes, described on GCRI academy and learning.
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Lessons learned | Documented knowledge from experience, positive or negative, recorded to change future practice. |
| After-action review | A structured review of what was planned, what happened and what should change, held after an exercise or real event. |
| Learning review | A post-incident review focused on causes and improvement rather than blame. |
Where this page's references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
Why publish mistakes?
Can participants contribute lessons?
Are exercise failures published?
How does learning change GRF's practice?
Around GRF.
Start with an enquiry.
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.