The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Editorial governance decides how reports are commissioned, reviewed, accepted, published and, when needed, corrected or retracted. Corrections are part of a healthy record, not a failure of it: the risk lies in errors that are found but not fixed, fixed but not signalled, or signalled but not reaching those who relied on the original. This page sets out how editorial decisions and corrections work, how they are recorded, and how notices travel to downstream users.
GCRI · Established · service level R0
Editorial policy is the set of rules that decides how reports are commissioned, reviewed, accepted, published and, when needed, corrected or retracted. Corrections belong to a healthy record; the risk lies in errors left unfixed, fixes made without a notice, and notices that never reach the readers who relied on the original.
Where people and networks concentrate, the exposure through which shocks travel between systems, shown for the Black Sea region as an example geography for this subject.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Editorial and corrections · Annual synthesis · Edition 7
| Annual synthesis | Global | Data check | 82 | W17 |
| Country profile 7 | Country | Peer review | 97 | W27 |
| Water outlook | Sectoral | Drafting | 32 | W22 |
| Methods note 4 | Methods | Released | 100 | done |
Publication governance and corrections. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Many errors surface after publication through reader reports, reanalysis or post-publication review. A clear route for reporting concerns, and a recorded response, decides whether they are acted on.
Editing a published file without a notice breaks the record: readers who cited the original cannot tell what changed. Every substantive change needs a new version and a linked notice.
A correction posted only on the publisher's page may never reach databases, reference managers or the reports that cite the original. Machine-readable update metadata carries the notice with the work.
Errata, corrections, expressions of concern and retractions answer different problems. Choosing the wrong one, or delaying the choice, either overstates a minor error or leaves a serious one standing.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Correction | A published notice that amends an error in a work whose main findings stand. |
| Expression of concern | A notice that alerts readers to serious doubts about a work while they are investigated. |
| Crossmark | A Crossref service that shows readers whether a document has been updated, corrected or retracted. |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time from concern received to editorial decision | days | per case | Editorial case log | OFFICIAL |
| Corrections, expressions of concern and retractions issued | count by type | annual | Notices and update metadata | OFFICIAL |
| Notices deposited as machine-readable update metadata | percent of notices | per notice | Crossref update records | OBSERVED |
| Citing works aware of the notice | percent of citing works | annual | Citation links checked against notices | ESTIMATED |
| Concerns closed with a recorded response to the reporter | percent of cases | annual | Editorial case log | OFFICIAL |
| Reports with a reviewer and editor record | percent of reports | annual | Review records | OFFICIAL |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| COPE guidelines and case database | Retraction guidelines, flowcharts and anonymised cases of editorial practice | Free to read, CC BY-NC-ND |
| Crossmark and Crossref update metadata | Machine-readable links between works and their corrections or retractions | Open metadata, no reuse restrictions |
| Retraction Watch Database via Crossref | Retractions and expressions of concern across publishers with reasons | Openly available through Crossref, attribution requested |
| PubPeer | Post-publication comments and concerns raised about published work | Terms per PubPeer |
| Problematic Paper Screener | Flags for tortured phrases, generated text and citations to retracted work | Free to use, terms per project |
| NISO CREC recommended practice | Communication of retractions, removals and expressions of concern across systems | Free to read, NISO terms |
Nexus Reports 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Series editors and the editorial board | Whether a concern warrants a correction, an expression of concern or a retraction | Case record, the evidence of error and the COPE flowchart that applies |
| Research integrity offices at authors' institutions | Whether an allegation requires an institutional investigation | Referral record and the evidence passed on, following COPE guidance |
| Authors of citing reports and their editors | Whether their own conclusions depend on the corrected work | Notices linked through update metadata and citation links |
| Abstracting, indexing and library services | How to display a work's correction or retraction status | Machine-readable update metadata and notices |
Research publishing depends on trust that findings were not shaped by those who funded, hosted or would be affected by them, and that errors will be fixed openly. Publication ethics has developed practices for this over decades: separation of editorial and commercial roles, disclosure of interests, clear authorship criteria and visible corrections. Nexus Reports applies them to risk evidence, where the consequences of error can be large.
Four controls protect the integrity of each edition.
No one can buy or block a finding; funding and hosting are disclosed and carry no editorial rights.
Authors, reviewers and editors declare interests; conflicted people step back from the decision.
Corrections create new versions; superseded versions stay available and marked.
These controls matter most when findings are inconvenient. A report that identifies a weakness in a sector, a country or a technology may face pressure from those affected. Clear rules, applied the same way to every series and every funder, are what allow editors to publish evidence-based findings and to correct their own mistakes without loss of credibility.
Authors made a substantial contribution and can answer for the content. Agent or model assistance is disclosed and never listed as authorship.
Anyone can report an error through corrections. Each report receives a reference and is assessed on evidence.
Concerns go to integrity@therisk.global and are reviewed by someone not responsible for the contested decision.
Where a finding cannot stand, the edition is marked accordingly and kept on the record with the reason.
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.