The Module project on “Global Risk Assessment Dataset and The EU’s role in the Governance of Global Risks” is called GRADEU. GRADEU is an 11-member research and training project carried out between 2022 and 2025, focusing on the European Union’s role in the governance of global risks. The project commenced on 1 October 2022 and was concluded on 30 September 2025.
As the title suggests the rationale behind this project is to produce and assess policy relevant scientific data that potentially contributes to the EU’s capacity and role in the governance of global existential risks and challenges. The module merges research, training and policy recommendation on EU’s role in governing global existential threats. The GRADEU module offers scientific data-based research on the transformation of global risks to facilitate the global governance capacity and management (identification, definition and tracking) of global risks, and act as an early-warning system before various global ‘risks’ turn into global ‘catastrophes’ and ‘crises’. The research and training activities throughout the GRADEU module will track the transformation of global risks and threats that concern humanity and the world since the end of the Cold War Era through a 3-dimensional approach:
1) Data and scientific Knowledge production,
2) Delivering undergraduate and post-graduate training (lectures, courses and training-sessions) on the EU’s capacity and role regarding the global governance of the identified global risks, and
3) Increasing awareness, creating impact and dissemination (through the module webpage, workshops, regular policy reports, and fact-sheets) on global risks on seven key issue areas including: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Technology, Development, Economy, Environment, Health, Nuclear Power, and Social Mass Mobility.
With this 3- dimensional approach the module will produce policy recommendations to contribute to the main priorities of the EU detailed-below.
The GRADEU Module addresses the global security risks specified in the annual reports of various international institutions (such as UN, World Bank, World Economic Forum, etc.), international non-state institutions (such as the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Global Challenges Foundation, etc.), EU documents (priorities, policy guidelines) and the academic literature. As part of the main outputs, a dataset will be prepared that gathers the identified risks and challenges in the above-mentioned reports to provide ‘knowledge-production’ and ‘increased-awareness’ on global security risks. The preliminary findings obtained so far within the scope of the preparation for the GRADEU module indicate that the most important risks can be categorized under seven headings: Development, Economy, Health, Nuclear Power, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Social movements and Environment. According to these preliminary findings research, learning activities, training session, and outputs of the module are organized around the EU’s capacity and role in global governance of the intensity and evolution of global catastrophic risks and challenges.
The project is based on a preliminary research where we track down the transformation of risks and challenges against the humanity and the world since the end of the Cold War Era. In this module one of the aims is to prepare ande benefit from a data set containing the global risks and threats mentioned in the annual published reports of various IGOs (UN, World Bank, World Economic Forum…etc.) and NGOs (Bulletin of Atomic Scientist, Global Challenges Foundation etc.). The preliminary findings from the Global Risks Assessment Dataset (GRAD) indicate that major global risks (some of them are potentially existential) may be categorized under 7 main headings: Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Technology, Development, Economy, Environment, Health, Nuclear Power, and Social Mass Mobility. The preliminary findings show that certain risks have been increasingly taking part as early- warnings in the risks assesment reports, yet global governance mechanisms have so far remained insufficient in dealing with them. For instance, the recent Covid-19 outbreak showed that nation-states still maintain their reflexes of seeking local solutions to global threats. Yet it also clarified that without efficient global governance, these ‘statist’ reflexes remain insufficient in preventing human suffering. One might observe that these findings are also reflected in the EU’s policy agenda and the above-mentioned six main priorities. To put it more specifically, we observe that in a time where global governance faces certain risks and challenges the EU prioritizes to become a stronger globalized actor and to take a more significant role in the global governance. We designed the module schedule to train the EU’s role in global governance comprehensively by including a wide range of topics. Together with its training aim through lectures directed at undergraduate students, the module also has a training aim through “expert seminars” to give advanced training to graduate students. The expert seminars are especially important to graduate students who aim to write MA thesis, PhD Dissertations, research articles and conference papers on those topics. Hence, the project training activities include collecting and sharing data with the target groups, development of a course outline, production of new training materials, website, and the training of the target group with these materials.
GRADEU Jean Monnet Module 