POLYCRISIS.WORLD for Educators
Free, live material for courses in international relations, risk management, climate and environmental studies, and systems thinking. No student accounts needed.
Why instructors use it
Most course material explains crises one at a time. POLYCRISIS.WORLD shows seven of them at once — Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, the South China Sea, climate, US domestic politics and the AI race — and, crucially, the documented links between them. Students can see a Gulf shipping attack show up as an energy-price link into the South China Sea, or a heatwave show up as a food-security link into migration politics. Every link, event and scenario is traceable to its news sources, which makes the site a good object for source criticism as well as a data source.
Everything is updated daily: AI-extracted, geolocated events from 100+ news feeds; scenario probabilities re-assessed as evidence arrives; composite risk scores for crises, countries and 58 listed companies; and a five-minute daily audio briefing.
How classes use it
International relations
Escalation dynamics, alliance behaviour and spillover. Use the
crisis pages and
connection pages to trace how a regional conflict becomes a systemic one; compare scenario probabilities with the IR theory students are reading.
Risk management & business
Geopolitical exposure of real companies. The
risk index covers countries and tickers (e.g.
XOM) with the crises they are exposed to and why. Good for enterprise-risk registers and scenario planning.
Climate & environment
Climate as a threat multiplier: the
climate page and its links to conflict, energy and migration show second-order effects that emissions-only framings miss.
Systems thinking & forecasting
Feedback loops, coupling and cascade risk. The
connection network is a live causal-loop diagram; scenario probabilities are a ready-made forecasting and calibration exercise.
Three ready-made exercises
Each works as a 50–75 minute seminar activity or a one-week assignment. Print this page (the site chrome is hidden in print) or copy the worksheets into your LMS.
Exercise 1 — Trace a transmission chain
Learning objectives
- Explain what distinguishes a polycrisis from several simultaneous crises.
- Identify the mechanism by which one crisis transmits into another (energy, military, supply chain, economic, diplomatic, migration, technology).
- Evaluate the quality of evidence behind an AI-extracted causal claim.
Steps
- Assign each group one pair from the connections hub (e.g. Iran ↔ South China Sea, Ukraine ↔ Climate).
- Read both directions. Which direction has more links? Which mechanism dominates? Why might transmission be asymmetric?
- Pick the three links you find most consequential. For each, open the evidence headlines and the original sources.
- For each link, rate the evidence: does the source actually report the causal effect, or only the triggering event? Is the claimed mechanism plausible, speculative or wrong?
- Draw the chain as a causal-loop diagram (A → mechanism → B). Mark any feedback that could loop back to A.
Worksheet
| Link (summary) | Mechanism | What the source actually says | Evidence rating (strong / partial / unsupported) |
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Discussion questions
- Which links would a single-crisis analyst have missed entirely?
- Where did the AI extraction overstate causality? What does that teach about automated intelligence tools?
- If you were a policymaker in B, which link would you try to cut, and how?
Deliverable & assessment
A one-page brief with the diagram and evidence table. Assess on (1) correct identification of mechanism, (2) quality of source criticism, (3) insight into asymmetry and feedback.
Exercise 2 — Forecasting journal: audit a scenario probability
Level: intermediate–advanced · Time: 2 weeks, ~20 min/day · Uses: scenario pages, live dashboard (Scenarios), daily podcast
Learning objectives
- Translate a qualitative scenario into observable indicators and resolution criteria.
- Update a probability in response to evidence, and explain each update.
- Understand calibration and score forecasts with the Brier score.
Steps
- Each student picks one scenario (e.g. Hormuz Closure, Frozen Conflict, Taiwan Contingency) and records the site's current probability.
- Before looking at anything else, write down your own probability and three observable signposts that would move it up or down.
- Every day for two weeks: record the site's probability, your probability, and any event (from the crisis page, dashboard or daily briefing) that should move it. Explain every change of 5 points or more.
- At the end, compare: when did you and the model disagree, and who moved first?
- Define precise resolution criteria (what exactly would count as the scenario happening, by when).
Worksheet
| Date | Site % | My % | Evidence / signpost observed | Why I updated (or didn’t) |
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Discussion questions
- Did the model over-react to headlines? Did you? What is the base rate for scenarios like this?
- Brier score = (forecast − outcome)². Why does it reward calibrated uncertainty rather than bold calls?
- What information did the model not have access to (non-English sources, classified intelligence, private negotiations)?
Deliverable & assessment
The completed journal plus a 500-word reflection on your updating behaviour. Assess on quality of signposts, discipline of updates, and understanding of calibration — not on whether the scenario happened.
Exercise 3 — Board risk memo: geopolitical exposure of a listed company
Learning objectives
- Map a company's revenue, supply chain and assets to specific geopolitical crises.
- Distinguish direct exposure from second-order (connected-crisis) exposure.
- Recommend proportionate mitigations and early-warning indicators.
Steps
- Pick a company from the risk index (e.g. XOM, LMT or a shipping or semiconductor firm). Read its exposure map: which crises, and the stated reason for each.
- Check the reasoning against the company's own annual report (risk-factors section). What does the site miss? What does the company downplay?
- Use the connection pages to find second-order exposure: a crisis the company is not directly in, but which transmits into one it is.
- Choose two of the eight risk indicators as early-warning triggers and set thresholds that would prompt board review.
- Write a one-page memo to the board.
Worksheet
| Crisis | Direct / 2nd-order | Exposure channel (revenue, supply, assets, people) | Trigger indicator & threshold | Mitigation |
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Discussion questions
- Why do markets sometimes ignore a crisis until it suddenly reprices (see the Market Contagion indicator)?
- Which mitigation reduces exposure to several connected crises at once?
- The site says it is not investment advice. What would you need to add to make this a decision-grade analysis?
Deliverable & assessment
A one-page board memo. Assess on accuracy of exposure mapping, use of second-order links, and whether triggers and mitigations are specific and proportionate.
Using it with a class
Good to know
- Free for teaching. All public pages, the dashboard and the daily podcast are free. Students who want to query data can use the API sandbox key (
pk_sandbox, 15 requests/minute) — see the API docs.
- Teach it critically. Events and connections are extracted by AI from English-language news; they contain errors and gaps. That is a feature for teaching source criticism — see the methodology and limitations.
- Audio for commuters. The five-minute daily briefing is a painless way to keep a class current across a term.
- Tell us about your course. We are happy to build a custom exercise or data export: [email protected].
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