Glossary

The span of time a piece of research covers: near (up to two years), strategic (two to five) or far (five to fifteen).

Early, imprecise information about a change that may happen. Signals from every horizon go into one register.

A sign whose appearance will confirm or refute an assumption. It is named in advance and has a date.

The question of a piece of work, its deadline, the owner of the result and the completion criterion.

A temporary team for one question, with a task passport, a deadline and an owner of the result. It is disbanded after the release.

The outside community of experts and partners around the lab. Its members join project teams according to their status.

A step of the cycle without which the work does not go on: the legal and ethical check before the work and the independent review before the release.

The form of the lab's result: nine blocks in a fixed order, from the key conclusion to the sources and the confidence.

The work of a separate group that looks for other explanations, hidden assumptions and signs of groupthink in strategic assessments and public conclusions.

A letter from A to F: what the source's past says about how often it is right. F means there is no history to judge by.

A digit from 1 to 6: how well the message agrees with what is established. A 1 needs independent sources.

Seven words, from “almost no chance” to “almost certain”, each with its own range. The lab's conclusions use no other words for probability.

The quality of the grounds for an estimate: high, medium or low. It is stated apart from probability.

A method that weighs every explanation against the data at once and counts the evidence against each.

The record of every forecast with its wording, probability, horizon, author and date of the check, and its outcome after that date.

How well the words of the probability scale match what happens, seen from the accumulated outcomes of the register.

A record in the graph of an investigation: a person in a public role, an organisation, a place, a document or a source.

What an investigation lacks: a relation without evidence, a place without coordinates, a conclusion the chain does not reach.

The work a gap turns into. A closed task returns its result to the record.

Four marks under a record: the source is named, a document is attached, the verification task is closed, a second person has confirmed. The marks say how far the check went and say nothing about whether the record is true.

The text that comes out of an investigation, with footnotes leading to the records it rests on.