Global challenges
The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) studies the challenges where risk, technology and development meet: a drought that becomes a power shortage and a food price shock, a software failure that halts ports and hospitals, an industrial transition that creates jobs in one place and exposure in another. These pages explain each challenge in plain language, what science can and cannot yet say about it, and where GCRI's evidence work, its specialist network and its partners in the programme take it further.
- 01SectionSystemic and cascading risks
- 02SectionWater, energy, food, health and nature
- 03SectionClimate and hazards
- 04SectionDisaster resilience
- 05SectionInfrastructure dependencies
- 06SectionDigital and cyber dependencies
- 07SectionIndustry, resources and trade
- 08SectionEconomic transformation
GCRI · Institution · service level R0
The short answer.
GCRI's global challenges are the problems where risk, technology and development meet, such as a drought that becomes a power shortage and a food price shock, or a software failure that halts ports and hospitals. Each challenge page explains the problem in plain language, what science can and cannot yet say and where GRF and GRA take up governance and finance.
Systemic exposure in Africa.
Where people and networks concentrate, the exposure through which shocks travel between systems, shown for Africa as an example geography for this subject.
Risk no longer stays inside one sector or one border.
The systems that sustain societies are coupled. Mandates, data and budgets remain divided by sector and by country, so the most consequential risks are often the ones least examined as a whole. Each challenge page starts from that coupling.
Shocks that travel
Hazards, failures and disruptions that cross water, energy, food, health, nature, infrastructure and finance. Start with systemic and cascading risks.
Technology that changes exposure
Digital, frontier and industrial technologies that create capability and new dependence at once. See digital and cyber dependencies.
Opportunity with its limits
Economic transformation, jobs and human development, and who bears the risk of change. See economic transformation.
Every challenge page answers the same five questions.
- 01
What the challenge is
A plain description of the system, the hazard or the transition, without jargon and without alarm.
- 02
How it connects
The dependencies that carry stress into other systems, and the common points of failure.
- 03
What the evidence says
Which parts are observed, which are modelled or estimated, and which remain unknown. Missing data is shown as missing, never as zero.
- 04
Where science stops
The limits of prediction and measurement, stated next to the claim they limit.
- 05
Where to go next
The field gateway, specialist platform, method page or programme that takes the question further, such as the STEM Commons for methods.
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 |
|---|---|
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from the interactions and dependencies within and between systems, where a shock can propagate and threaten the functioning of the whole. |
| Cascading risk | Risk that a failure in one system or component triggers failures in others that depend on it. |
| Interdependency | A two-way dependency between infrastructures, such as power needing telecoms for control while telecoms need power to run. |
| Compound event | Two or more hazards or drivers occurring together or in sequence whose joint impact exceeds what either would cause alone, such as drought followed by intense rain; IPCC assessments use the term. |
Science here, governance and finance at the other pillars.
GCRI examines a challenge as science and evidence. The Global Risks Forum (GRF) examines how it is governed, on its risk governance pages. The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) examines what the evidence means for financial decisions, on its financial-system risk pages. Each institution keeps its own voice and publisher, and the pages link rather than copy.
GCRI prepares evidence. It does not regulate, certify, license or approve, and decisions remain with the competent government, operator or institution.
Pages in Global challenges.
Systemic and cascading risks
PageWater, energy, food, health and nature
PageClimate and hazards
PageDisaster resilience
PageInfrastructure dependencies
PageDigital and cyber dependencies
PageIndustry, resources and trade
PageEconomic transformation
PageSociety and human development
PageGeopolitical and geoeconomic risk
PageRisk transmission examples
Questions and answers.
Who are these pages written for?
Do the challenge pages rank countries or risks?
Can I use these pages to make a decision?
How do I report an error on a challenge page?
Around GCRI.
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.