GCRI · Reports
Sectoral series
Sectoral reports profile how risk builds and moves through an industry or service: energy, finance, agriculture, health care, transport, telecommunications. Much of the relevant evidence is held by companies, regulators and industry bodies rather than published in the peer-reviewed literature. This page sets out how sector evidence is sourced and weighed, how competing interests are handled, and what the profiles can support for regulators, operators and investors.
Sectoral series in seven parts.
- 01The questionSectoral series: how the risk develops
- 02In the five domainsSector editions look at one domain’s industries across countries
- 03IndicatorsWhat is measured, and how well
- 04SourcesWhere the evidence comes from
- 05DecisionsWho decides, and what the evidence serves
- 06Core questionsWhat the series asks
- 07ScopeWhat the series covers
Sectoral series: how the risk develops.
Sector and industry profiles. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Grey literature dominance
Industry reports, regulatory filings and consultancy studies carry much of the sector evidence but follow no common review standard. Treating them as equivalent to reviewed research overstates the certainty of what they report.
Competing interests
Funding, employment, advisory roles and data access agreements can shape which questions are asked and how results are framed. Undeclared interests are among the most common grounds for correction in sector studies.
Classification drift
Sectors are defined differently across classification systems and change as industries change. Profiles that mix definitions compare unlike populations and misstate concentration and exposure.
Commercial confidentiality
When key data cannot be published, readers cannot check the analysis. Evidence held under confidentiality must be labelled as such so that conclusions resting on it are not read as independently verifiable.
Series production desk.
The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
Series production desk
Sectoral series · Annual synthesis · Edition 6
Editions in production
| Annual synthesis | Global | Data check | 86 | W29 |
| Country profile 7 | Country | Peer review | 97 | W26 |
| Water outlook | Sectoral | Drafting | 30 | W28 |
| Methods note 4 | Methods | Released | 100 | done |
Data check, annual synthesis
Edition pipeline
- Outlineboard
- Draftauthors
- Data checkevery value
- Peer reviewtwo rounds
- Editorialdecision
- ReleaseDOI
- Correctionsversioned
Sector editions look at one domain’s industries across countries.
Sector editions never rate or rank firms. They use aggregated data with sources, carrying NS-3b metadata under the proposed Nexus Standards.
- Sector data under terms.
- Peer review.
How sectoral series 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 sectoral series, the assumptions it makes and how each is tested.
Ri = f(Hi, Ei, Vi, Ci)hazard, exposure, vulnerability and coping capacityEAL = ∑k pk · Lkover events k with annual probability pkxt+1 = A xt + B ut + εtA carries the couplings, u the shock, ε the error| Assumption | Why it is made | How it is tested |
|---|---|---|
| Hazard and exposure are independent within an event | Keeps the loss integral tractable | Compare with a copula fit on joint records |
| Couplings are linear near the operating point | Lets shocks propagate through A | Perturb beyond the linear range and compare |
| Vulnerability curves transfer between places | Local curves are rarely available | Validate 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
What is measured, and how well.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grey literature share of cited sources | percent of references | per report | Reference classification audit | REPORTED |
| Sources funded by the profiled industry | percent of references | per report | Funding statements in cited works | REPORTED |
| Competing interest declarations on file | percent of contributors and reviewers | per report | Declaration records | DECLARED |
| Findings resting on confidential data | count of key statements | per report | Editorial audit | REPORTED |
| Sector classification stated for each dataset | percent of datasets | per version | Data annex | REPORTED |
| Regulatory filings cited with filing reference | percent of regulatory citations | per version | Reference metadata | OBSERVED |
Where the evidence comes from.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| UN International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) | Common sector definitions and correspondences to national systems | Free to use, United Nations terms |
| ILOSTAT | Labour statistics by economic activity | CC BY 4.0 |
| OECD data and sector outlooks | Sector statistics, structural indicators and policy reviews | Free to use, terms per OECD |
| SEC EDGAR and equivalent filing registries | Company filings, risk factor disclosures and annual reports | Public records, terms per registry |
| Crossref funding and reference metadata | Funder identifiers and references for reviewed sector research | Open metadata, no reuse restrictions |
| Sector regulators’ published reports | Supervisory statistics, incident reports and stress test documentation | Public records, terms per regulator |
Who decides, and what the evidence serves.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sector regulators and supervisors | Whether a sector’s concentration and dependencies warrant supervisory attention or stress testing | Profiles with source review status, classification and confidentiality stated |
| Industry operators and associations | Which shared dependencies to address jointly through standards or mutual aid | Dependency maps with evidence labels and the data gaps that limit them |
| Institutional investors and their stewardship teams | How sector exposure to systemic risk should inform engagement | Sector risk profiles with competing interests and data sources disclosed |
| Standards bodies | Where common definitions or disclosure standards are missing | Classification drift and disclosure gaps documented across sources |
Outputs this topic produces
- Sector profiles that label each source by review status
- Competing interest statements for every contributor and reviewer
- Data annexes stating classifications and confidentiality
- Dependency maps between sectors with their evidence labels
What the series asks.
Each sector has its own physics, economics, regulation and vocabulary, and its own ways of failing. Operators and regulators need analysis that respects those specifics while showing how the sector depends on and affects others. Sector profiles also help readers outside a sector understand where its risks could reach them.
- What are the critical functions of a sector, and what does it depend on to deliver them?
- Which hazards and threats matter most for the sector, and how have its exposures changed?
- How concentrated is the sector in suppliers, technologies, locations or firms, and what are the consequences of that concentration?
- How does stress in this sector transmit to others, including through financial channels?
What the series covers.
Sector profiles combine engineering, economic and institutional views.
Critical services
What the sector delivers that society cannot do without, and the minimum service levels that matter in a crisis.
Inputs and links
Energy, water, data, labour, finance and supply chains on which the sector relies.
Readiness questions
Where relevant, finance and insurance readiness questions examined with the Global Risks Alliance (GRA) at sector level, never firm by firm.
Sector analysis draws on the engineering idea of critical functions: rather than listing every asset, it asks which services must continue, at what minimum level, and what they depend on. This keeps attention on consequences for people and on the dependencies, often outside the sector, that can interrupt those services.
How editions are built, and their limits.
- 01
Sector data
Operator, regulator and industry data, labelled by source type. Commercial confidentiality limits what can be published.
- 02
Engineering analysis
Reliability and dependency analysis from the specialist platforms. Models are reviewed technically before publication.
- 03
Aggregation
Data from firms are aggregated before use; no edition assesses or rates an individual firm.
- 04
Case evidence
Documented incidents illustrate failure modes. Cases are selected for learning, not to assign blame.
How it is studied, and what the methods cannot say.
- 01Data engineering, interoperability and stewardshipStructured publishing in JATS XML · Persistent identifiers across the recordApplied here
- 02Probability and statisticsMeta-analysis with heterogeneity stated · Small-study and publication biasApplied here
- 03Uncertainty quantification and model validationCalibrated language in assessments · Certainty of evidence ratingsApplied here
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 include grey literature at all?
How are competing interests handled?
Can industry fund a sector report?
Does the sectoral series rate companies?
Who contributes to sector profiles?
Is the finance readiness series investment advice?
Can an industry body sponsor a sector profile?
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.
- EmailGateway GW-GCRISend it from this pageEvidence, a correction, a case, a method, a review, a translation or profile input. It arrives tagged with this page, so the editor who owns it receives it.
- ZenodoOpen depositDeposit it and submit to the communityPublish your own record on Zenodo with your ORCID iD, then submit it to the Reports community there. Curators review it; the DOI stays yours.
- ReportsGCRISee every way to contributeThe contribution types, how each is reviewed, what credit you receive, the licence and what is never accepted.
Never send personal data, sensitive infrastructure detail or anything you have no right to share. A contribution is reviewed before use; sending it confers no authorship or editorial rights, and sponsorship never buys a finding.
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.
Legal documents.
Maps, data and figures on this site are shown for context and general information. They are not advice, forecasts or warnings; the limits of the information are set out in the Disclaimers and Data Notices.