IEP has developed new and ground-breaking approaches to forecasting and conceptualising the risk of conflict. Using data collected since 1996, the Institute has developed a new methodology to identify countries at risk of falling into instability and violence. The risk model allows a deep understanding of the resilience of nations towards internal and external shocks and can be used for forecasting risk and opportunity.

The risk report is the first known attempt to forecast and predict changes in the IEP’s Global Peace Index (GPI), based on IEP’s unique Positive Peace framework that empirically measures the attitudes, institutions and structures that build a more peaceful society.  

Due to the difficulty in forecasting the onset of large-scale violence, it is important to better understand and conceptualise new approaches to measuring the risk of it. As the GPI has recorded in the past ten years, the global trend in peace has been deteriorating due to the large conflicts in the Middle East, increased terrorism and historic displacement of people, which is having profound impacts on global peace and stability.  

While some risks can be foreseen and planned for, profoundly destabilising events such as civil unrest, conflict onset and the collapse of entire countries have, all too often, caught the world by surprise.