GCRI · Foundry

Foundry

Public gateway to the technical work environment while keeping project permissions and privileged services within Foundry. Foundry is an established platform of The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation.

STEM methods
6
Canonical methods this field applies
Topics
8
Subject pages in the field
Counterparts
1
Platforms in shared fields across the network
Report series
1
Reports series it contributes to
01Workspace

The workspace for foundry.

Workspace and job console

Project space 12 · Cluster east · Example interface, not a record

  • Jobs running
    34Active
  • Queue wait, p50
    5minNormal
  • Runs today
    33111
  • Quota used, % this month
    44Watch
IllustrativeGCRI · Foundry

Jobs

J-81914Flood model ensembleProject owner00:50:12Running
J-26094Tile render, zoom 0 to 12GIS workspace00:03:40Running
J-78537Evidence exportModel steward00:00:25Done
J-72519Agent tool call batchAgent sandbox00:01:19Policy block

Policy events

  1. 10:22GateAgent call needs human approval
  2. 10:27InfoRun record sealed
  3. 11:15WarnQuota at 80 pct for project
Workspace and job console.Illustrative interface; not live data.

Foundry · Workspace and job console. Workspace and job console: example names and illustrative values, not a record.

02Overview

What Foundry does.

A risk modelling environment is the combination of compute, data pipelines, models, access controls and records in which risk analyses are built and run. Foundry is designed as that environment for national risk models and digital twins, and its pages set out the risks inside such work, from silent data transformation to permission drift, overreaching agents and compute that fails when needed.

Who it serves

Its community

Engineers; model builders; researchers; technology operators; project owners.

How it works

Its methods

System specifications; APIs; geospatial model workflows; authorisation.

What it produces

Its outputs

Capability catalogue; installation guidance; public technical examples.

03Simulator

A cascade through interdependent networks.

A hazard footprint takes out co-located assets in every layer; fragmentation, dependency between layers and overload of the survivors then spread the failure. The 3D view separates the layers by depth. Teaching model with stated illustrative values, not a prediction.

Controls

Assets per layer
18
Hazard footprint
8% of area
Assets that depend on another layer
60%
Spare capacity (tolerance)
30%

Readouts

Assets hit by the hazard
11%
Assets still working
26%
Amplification of the initial damage
6.7 times
Steps to settle
3
Numbers, methods and sources
StepData centres working (%)Networks working (%)Power working (%)
0948389
1784439
2563322
356176

Methods

  1. Interdependent networks Buldyrev and others (2010), Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks, Nature 464
  2. Overload cascades Motter and Lai (2002), Physical Review E 66
  3. Betweenness load Brandes (2001), Journal of Mathematical Sociology 25
  4. Multilayer networks Kivela and others (2014), Journal of Complex Networks 2
  5. Infrastructure interdependencies Rinaldi, Peerenboom and Kelly (2001), IEEE Control Systems 21(6)
  6. Uncertainty fan (parameter Monte Carlo) Spiegelhalter, Pearson and Short (2011), Visualising uncertainty about the future, Science 333
  7. One-at-a-time sensitivity (tornado) Saltelli and others (2008), Global Sensitivity Analysis: The Primer, Wiley

Data

The model runs on the teaching values set by the controls. To calibrate it for a place, read it against these admitted layers and series, which this page’s map can draw:

  • Major roads Natural Earth
  • Railways Natural Earth
  • Seaports Natural Earth
  • Airports Natural Earth
  • Urban extents Natural Earth
  • Night lights tonight, outages (VIIRS Day/Night Band) NASA/NOAA VIIRS (Suomi NPP) · register nasa.gibs.context-live-layers
  • Natural events (NASA EONET) NASA EONET · register nasa.eonet.events
A cascade through interdependent networks. Illustrative teaching model: it runs on the values set by the controls, not on measured data. Methods: Interdependent networks (Buldyrev and others (2010), Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks, Nature 464); Overload cascades (Motter and Lai (2002), Physical Review E 66); Betweenness load (Brandes (2001), Journal of Mathematical Sociology 25).

Across the six pillars, led by Nexus Consortium

05Methods and evidence

How foundry is modelled, measured and tested.

The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.

Model, equations and assumptions

The model structure used for foundry, the assumptions it makes and how each is tested.

Risk of element iRi = f(Hi, Ei, Vi, Ci)hazard, exposure, vulnerability and coping capacity
Expected annual lossEAL = ∑k pk · Lkover events k with annual probability pk
Coupled systemsxt+1 = A xt + B ut + εtA carries the couplings, u the shock, ε the error
AssumptionWhy it is madeHow it is tested
Hazard and exposure are independent within an eventKeeps the loss integral tractableCompare with a copula fit on joint records
Couplings are linear near the operating pointLets shocks propagate through APerturb beyond the linear range and compare
Vulnerability curves transfer between placesLocal curves are rarely availableValidate against observed losses where they exist
Inputs
versioned datasets with provenance
Outputs
distributions, never single numbers
Code
released with the model card and tests
Reproduction
same data, code, environment and seed
Standard risk and state-space formulations; the assumptions listed are typical of the method, stated for review, not results.

Datasets and provenance

The data classes behind foundry and what is recorded about each before it is used.

Data classProvenance recordedResolution statedLicence checked
Satellite imagery, optical and radarsensor, processing level, acquisition datepixel size and revisitper scene
Reanalysis and climate model outputmodel, experiment, member, versiongrid and time stepper release
In-situ sensors and gaugesstation, instrument, calibration recordpoint and sampling rateper network
Population and asset exposuremethod, vintage, input sourcescell size and unitper release
Boundaries and reference geographyproducer, edition, datescaleper edition
Lineage
W3C PROV record from source to figure
Principles
FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable
Gaps
shown as missing, never filled silently
Data classes and the provenance fields recorded for each; a dataset is listed by name only once its licence admits the use.
FAIR guiding principles · GO FAIR and FORCE11W3C PROV · World Wide Web ConsortiumGuidance on consistent treatment of uncertainties · IPCCCEOS Analysis Ready Data · Committee on Earth Observation Satellites
06Mandate and boundaries

What Foundry is for, and what its descriptions do not claim.

Foundry is the shared work environment designed for national teams to build and run risk models, data pipelines and decision tools on their own data, under their own authority. GCRI Canada is the contracting party for the service under a not-for-profit mandate; technology and infrastructure providers work at arm’s length and hold no control over governance, research or data.

Descriptions of the twenty Foundry systems state their purpose, not observed operation; information and enquiries are open today. Screens shown are illustrative interfaces with example values, never output from a live service.

08Reports, standards and contributions

From Foundry work to Reports, under the proposed standards.

Readiness of Foundry capabilities is designed to be reported in the Foundry Build and Readiness series, and analyses built there in the country series. Software, models and datasets used in Foundry are designed to carry bills of materials, model cards and metadata under NS-12 and NS-3b of the proposed Nexus Standards.

  • Research software engineers can review code and reproducibility practice.
  • National teams can propose the first questions their Foundry workspace should answer.
  • Security researchers can report a vulnerability to the security address.
09The problem

Why risk analysis needs an environment, not just tools.

Systemic risk is studied across water, energy, food, health, finance and infrastructure at once, and the analysis that supports a decision usually passes through many hands: a hydrologist’s flood model, a utility’s asset register, a satellite product, a household survey, an economist’s loss estimate. Each step transforms data, and each transformation carries assumptions. When those steps sit in personal folders, unversioned scripts and email attachments, three failures follow. Results cannot be reproduced, because nobody can say which data cut and which model version produced them. Permissions leak, because sensitive layers travel further than their owners agreed. And errors cascade, because a correction to an upstream source never reaches the products built on it.

These are engineering problems as much as scientific ones. Distributed computing, data stewardship, geospatial processing, machine learning and safety-critical software engineering each have mature practices for traceability, access control and verification. Foundry brings those practices into one environment designed for risk work, so that a figure in a published brief can be traced back to its sources, licences, transformations and model runs, and so that the people who own data keep control of it throughout.

10What it does

One environment, scoped by project, for the whole cycle of work.

All work in Foundry is designed to happen inside a project: a bounded workspace with a question, an accountable owner, data terms, a review plan and an openness profile. Authentication proves who someone is; authorisation, decided request by request by the NXS-NSF (trust, authorisation and assurance) Sovereignty Framework, decides what they may do.

Projects

Persistent context

Workspaces keep data, models, maps, decisions and programme memory together across the year, with permissions set by the project rather than by the room.

Evidence

Traceable records

The Global Risks Index (NXS-GRX) registers sources with their owners and licences, keeps originals unchanged and binds every risk record to place, time and scenario.

Compute

Cloud, local and edge

NXS-COR (compute, nodes and runtimes) is designed to schedule workloads across cloud, private infrastructure and edge nodes, so analysis can run where data is allowed to sit.

Trust

One policy spine

Identity, mandate, policy gates and receipts work the same way for people, applications and AI agents.

Foundry is for engineers, model builders, researchers, technology operators and project owners working on authorised projects. No system is open to the public by default, and a membership, payment or infrastructure offer is not an allocation.

11Foundation and counterparts

Grounded in engineering, connected across three institutions.

The platform applies six methods from the STEM Commons: high-performance, cloud and edge computing, data engineering, interoperability and stewardship, geospatial information systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, systems engineering and software and safety-critical systems engineering. Each method page says how the method is used here and links to its canonical description.

Every platform in the network names, on its own Foundry page, the systems it relies on, and Foundry serves all 63 platforms of the three institutions. Its closest counterpart is Actuarial and Quantitative Risk at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA), which shares the methods and modelling field and works on the validation of quantitative models. Governance questions about programme gates are convened by The Global Risks Forum (GRF) through the Governance Nexus. Build readiness is reported in the Foundry Build and Readiness series, and the build is exercised in the Universe through the edition Core build theme.

Foundry is operated at national and regional level by Nexus Consortiums through their host and lead organisations, within a multilateral programme led by three pillar not-for-profit institutions, GCRI, GRF and GRA, on a public-private-planet partnership.

12Coverage

The areas of data and compute this platform takes on.

Foundry is the compute and methods environment where national risk models, data pipelines and digital twins are built and run. It studies the risks inside that work: models that fit the past for the wrong reasons, pipelines that transform data silently, permissions that drift, agents that overreach and compute that fails when it is needed. Its pages set out the engineering, the data, the methods and the decisions for each part, with every value labelled by its evidence.

Area

Data pipelines and lineage

Ingestion, validation, standardisation and provenance, from the source passport to the published figure.

Area

Models and simulation

Ensembles, coupling, calibration, validation and reproducible runs for physical, statistical and agent-based models.

Area

Geospatial infrastructure

Coordinate reference, catalogues, OGC and STAC services, and the public-safe release of maps.

Area

Compute and edge

Cloud, private infrastructure and edge nodes scheduled as one capacity, with placement by data location and policy.

Area

AI and agents

Machine learning models and tool-using agents, their evaluation, authority records and human review.

Area

Identity and authority

Projects, roles, mandates and policy gates that deny by default and record a receipt for every consequential action.

Area

Software assurance

Contracts, software bills of materials, build provenance, testing and the evidence that a release is what it claims to be.

Area

Metering and accountability

Service units, quotas and credits attributed to projects and kept independent of scientific state.

13Grounding

Built on named science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Every claim on Foundry rests on methods with a canonical page in the STEM Commons, so readers can see what a finding depends on and where its limits lie.

High-performance, cloud and edge computingData engineering, interoperability and stewardshipGeospatial information systemsArtificial intelligence and machine learningSystems engineeringSoftware and safety-critical systems engineering

See the STEM foundation of Foundry

14Cycle

How work moves in this field.

A question becomes evidence, a governed build, an organised community, a controlled test, a reviewed publication and, finally, a decision taken by the competent authority under its own rules.

  1. Question Universe National, regional or institutional priority. Question in Foundry
  2. Evidence Foundry STEM foundation of the platform. Evidence in Foundry
  3. Build Foundry Foundry. Build in Foundry
  4. Organise Universe Nexus ecosystem. Organise in Foundry
  5. Test Universe Universe (independent site). Test in Foundry
  6. Publish Reports Reports. Publish in Foundry
  7. Decide Competent authority Competent authorities and institutions, through NXS-RLS (participants, agreements and handoffs). Decide in Foundry
  8. Renew Universe Corrections and the next annual agenda. Renew in Foundry

Each step of the cycle in the pillar it runs in; the decision stays with the competent authority, outside the programme.

15Six pillars

How this works across the six pillars.

Foundry works through six pillars of one annual programme, led by the Nexus Consortium, with GCRI, GRF and GRA each contributing in its role: explore, experiment and prototype in Labs, build, simulate and prepare in Foundry, convene and test in Universe, codify, correct and apply in Nexus Standards, publish in every format in Reports, teach in the open in Risk Academy.

Select pillars · hover lines18 / 18 handoffs

Route

The whole programme

Every pillar hands its work to another; together they close the year’s feedback loops.

L · F · U · S · R · A

Pillars
6 of 6
Handoffs
18 of 18
Loops
17 closed

Handoffs in play

  • F01Universe → Foundry · Admitted mission becomes a cycle project with a decision caseReadiness preparation
  • F02Foundry → Universe · Core Build Report and go or no-go evidenceControlled build
  • F03Foundry → Reports · Sealed observations and indicator series behind a profileCloseout
  • F04Universe → Reports · After-action and scenario findings for chapters 10 and 13After-action review

and 14 more

F01 to F14 are the recorded handoffs of the programme year, each with the artefact that moves and its phase; R1, R2, R3 and R4 carry work around the ring. A loop counts when every pillar on it is selected. Every pillar is led by the Nexus Consortium.
  1. LabsWhere questions become experiments and prototypes: new methods, data and tools are tried in the open, with their limits on record, before the Foundry builds them, under the Nexus Consortium.Labs
  2. FoundryWhere methods, data and models become reproducible builds, each run with its inputs, version and limits on record.Foundry in FoundryFoundry
  3. UniverseWhere a build is tested under controlled conditions with independent evaluators, so a method’s skill is measured, not assumed.Foundry in Universeuniverse.nexus
  4. Nexus StandardsWhere methods, identifiers and data schemas are codified in the open and corrected when a test finds a fault.Data and Evidence in Standardsnexustandards.com
  5. ReportsWhere findings are published with their method, uncertainty and evidence class, and corrected as new versions.Foundry in ReportsReports
  6. Risk AcademyWhere methods and systems are taught on real data and real places, by working the case, on Risk Academy.Faculty of Technology and Digital Systems in Academyrisksacademy.com
16Frameworks

What the work is read against.

The platform does not set standards. It reads its evidence against the frameworks that competent bodies have adopted, so a finding can be placed where a decision-maker already works.

Framework or standardBodyWhat it sets
ISO/IEC 25010 and ISO/IEC 27001ISO and IECA product quality model for software and systems, and requirements for an information security management system and its controls
NIST AI Risk Management FrameworkUS National Institute of Standards and TechnologyFunctions to govern, map, measure and manage risks from AI systems across their life cycle
ISO/IEC 42001 artificial intelligence management systemISO and IECRequirements for establishing, operating and improving an organisation’s management of AI
OGC API standards and the SpatioTemporal Asset CatalogOpen Geospatial Consortium, STAC communityInteroperable web access to features, maps, tiles and gridded coverage data, and searchable catalogues of imagery and derived rasters
Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventionsCF conventions communityStandard names, units and coordinate descriptions for gridded scientific data in netCDF
FAIR guiding principlesFORCE11 and GO FAIRFindable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data and metadata, for machines as well as people
SLSA and software bill of materials practiceOpenSSF; SPDX (ISO/IEC 5962) and OWASP CycloneDXLevels of build provenance and integrity, and standard inventories of software components and licences
Model cards and datasheets for datasetsResearch and practitioner communityStructured documentation of a model’s intended use, evaluation and limits, and of a dataset’s origin and composition
ISO 9001 quality management applied to modelsISODocumented process, review, corrective action and continual improvement for model development and use
ACM artefact review and badgingAssociation for Computing MachineryCriteria for research artefacts that are available, functional, and whose results have been reproduced by others
17Consortium

The same field, seen three ways.

GCRI studies a field as science, GRF governs it and GRA builds shared financial understanding of it. Foundry links to its counterparts so that work on one side is visible on the others.

20Connected

Where this page leads across the Consortium.

21Questions

Questions and answers.

Who publishes Foundry?
The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) publishes Foundry and is responsible for what it publishes. GCRI is a research, development and policy institution. It is not a regulator, and it does not certify, license or approve; its findings carry their methods and uncertainty.
Is Foundry active?
Foundry is an established platform of The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation. Information and enquiries are open today. 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.
How can I contribute?
Start with the participation paths or write to the contact form. An enquiry receives a reference; it does not create membership, a role or an assignment.
Where are findings published?
Reviewed outputs appear on the publications page, and contributions to the Reports series are listed on Publish in Reports.
Which values on this platform are real?
Indicator names, units, sources, methods and frameworks are real. Levels in figures and canvases are examples in a design. A programme replaces them with labelled evidence it owns.
How do I report an error?
Use corrections and concerns, or write to the integrity concern form. A correction is recorded as a new version, never a silent edit.
Can I sign up and start a project today?
Not yet. Information and enquiries are open today. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; project allocations open when their terms and review capacity are in place.
Does Foundry make decisions or issue warnings?
No. Its systems support analysis, coordination and records. Decisions, authority warnings and the release of funds stay with competent authorities and institutions under their own rules.
ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium’s quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

GCRIFoundryFoundry Build and Readiness
How it works

How Foundry works.

Choose a view and press Play to follow the platform’s process, its programme year, the standards it applies and how its findings are published. The outline shows how the work is designed to run, not the status of any decision.

Foundry

How Foundry works

Platforms · Programme year · Standards · Reports

A platform joins a field to named methods, labelled evidence and the outputs it publishes, without becoming the authority it serves.

  1. 01 Scope

    1. 01Field and familiesStart · The platform leadThe home states the field, its families and who it serves.
    2. 02Topic dossiersRecord · Platform authorsTopics explain the subject with labelled evidence.
  2. 02 Evidence

    1. 03Evidence labelsRecord · GCRIEach value is labelled: observed, published statistics, estimated, modelled, scenario or unknown.
    2. 04MethodsStep · Method ownersMethods come from the STEM Commons, each with one canonical page.
  3. 03 Work

    1. 05Scenarios on the systemsModel · Foundry pillarScenarios run on the Nexus systems, labelled as scenario.
    2. 06Standards that applyRecord · Nexus StandardsThe platform names the standards that apply. A validator report is evidence for review.
  4. 04 Publish

    1. 07EditionsRecord · ReportsFindings are published through Reports with their limits.
    2. 08Authority decidesOutcome · The competent authorityDecisions and execution stay with the government, operator or licensed institution.

Foundry home · Platforms · Shared methodsAn outline of how the work is designed to run; it does not report the status of any decision or record.

Take part

Take part in Foundry.

Start from who you are. Answer an open call. Or form and lead a competence cell on the Foundry platform.

Route

National institutions

Ministries, statistics offices and agencies: a national desk and chapter, and a seat in the working groups. National chapters

Route

Sectors and professions

Operators, regulators, banks, insurers and professional bodies whose work touches Foundry. Participate

Route

Learning

Courses and practice, with a record of every course completed. Free to study. Open learning

Route

Standards

Draft, review and adopt the methods and data standards with the working groups. Working groups

Route

Communities and research

Universities, civil society and individual experts: projects, data and review. Write to the team

The Global Risks Index

Every figure on this page is indexed: hazards, climate, conflict, the world.

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.

  1. 01 · Sources205 registered sourcesEvery value keeps its source and licence; withheld values are counted.Data and licences
  2. 02 · Nexus StandardsNIS-1 and NHS-1451 indicators, 905 hazards; every record carries a UNI.Nexus Standards
  3. 03 · The Index54 series, 195 country profilesComputed on the standards; no value is published until an edition is released.The Global Risks Index
  4. 04 · This pageFoundryMaps, figures and feeds read the Index in the context of hazards, climate, conflict.Public API
Sources205registered, each with its licence
Indicators451NIS-1, 106 composites, 20 domain indices
Hazards905NHS-1, crosswalked to UNDRR-ISC HIPs
Series54global, sector, strategic, technology, thematic
Country profiles195one site per country

Series in this context hazards, climate, conflict

  1. GLBGlobal SystemsThe state of interdependent global risk: the twenty domain indices aggregated to the world, the five core systems (water, energy, food, health, biodiversity) and their couplings, the global tail register and the gap…NXS-GRX-AR-000002Hazards · Climate · Conflict
  2. THDisaster Risk Intelligence (DRI)Signals, observations, event streams, geospatial layers and scenario packs turned into structured risk intelligence for preparedness and planning.NXS-GRX-AR-000111Hazards · Climate · Conflict
  3. GSGlobal CitiesUrban exposure, heat, flooding, informal settlement, service dependency and the economic weight of cities at risk.NXS-GRX-AR-000068Hazards · Infrastructure · Climate
  4. GSGlobal ClimateChronic and acute physical climate hazard, transition exposure, adaptation gaps and scenario pathways to 2030, 2050 and 2100.NXS-GRX-AR-000065Climate · Hazards · Finance

All 54 series · The 20 domain indices

Country profiles the world

Every country profile carries the source and licence of each value. Correct a value or reply

Hazard domains NHS-1

Geodata and API open

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.

Foundry

Bring a method, a dataset or a question.

Information and enquiries are open today. 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.

The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation

Science · evidence · measurement

Not for profit

Our articles, maps and twins are free to read and free to republish. Readers and partners keep it that way.

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Who funds us

GCRI is a not-for-profit institution. To ask who funds a piece of work, use the funding questions form.

Independence

Editors and the expert reviewers named on each article decide what we publish. Funders and partners do not review or approve articles before publication.

Licence

Articles: CC BY 4.0. Figures, maps, twins and data: CC BY 4.0. Other uses: ask through the permissions form.