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UN-GGCE Investment Prioritization and Risk Rubric ​

Work Assignment 1b ​

Date: February 2026 Prepared by: UN-GGCE Technical Writing Team Reference: Terms of Reference 2 (ToR2) - Work Assignment 1

Executive Summary ​

To operationalize the four Guiding Architectural Principles defined in Work Assignment 1, this rubric translates high-level geodetic supply chain principles into actionable risk severity levels and investment priorities.

This document serves as the authoritative framework for the risk-analyst agent to evaluate capability gaps and for the roadmap-planner agent to sequence funding recommendations within the Joint Development Plan. It ensures that investments are mathematically prioritized based on their mitigation of existential supply chain risks.

The Risk & Investment Matrix ​

1. Geographical & Geopolitical Redundancy ​

  • Critical Risk (Immediate Investment): A Level 3 EGV (final product) relies on a single geographic region or a single sovereign state for its primary data or processing.
    • Mitigation Strategy: Fund immediate establishment of a mirrored operational center in a disparate geopolitical region to eliminate the single point of failure.
  • High Risk (Near-Term Investment): A region lacks the minimum baseline of ground observatories required for accurate global reference frames.
    • Mitigation Strategy: Subsidize capital expenditure for new observatories in underserved regions (e.g., Global South) to improve spatial redundancy.

2. Distributed Accountability (Formal Governance) ​

  • Critical Risk (Immediate Investment): A "critical path" observatory or centre operates entirely on voluntary, in-kind contributions without a Service Level Agreement (SLA), Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), or formal mandate.
    • Mitigation Strategy: Fund the legal and administrative transition of this observatory or centre to a formalized, internationally recognized operational entity.
  • High Risk (Near-Term Investment): Operations are governed by a single academic institution rather than a multilateral body.
    • Mitigation Strategy: Invest in establishing shared governance boards or transferring oversight to a UN/IAG joint committee.

3. Resilient Critical Paths & FAIR Interoperability ​

  • Critical Risk (Immediate Investment): A dataset or processing pipeline exists in a proprietary, undocumented, or non-transferable format (a "black box").
    • Mitigation Strategy: Fund the immediate refactoring of the data pipeline to meet FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) standards and open APIs.
  • High Risk (Near-Term Investment): Only one software package exists globally to compute a specific EGV, creating vendor/developer lock-in.
    • Mitigation Strategy: Fund the development of redundant, open-source alternative processing software.

4. Sustainable Operations & Viable Maturity ​

  • Critical Risk (Immediate Investment): An observatory or centre has a "People" maturity of Level 1 or 2, relying on a single retiring expert with no formal succession plan.
    • Mitigation Strategy: Fund immediate "knowledge capture" programs and underwrite long-term operational salaries/training for new personnel.
  • High Risk (Near-Term Investment): An observatory or centre relies on end-of-life legacy hardware (Technology Level 1 or 2) that frequently fails.
    • Mitigation Strategy: Provide capital investment for hardware modernization and lifecycle replacement.