I. Eligibility
1.1 Purpose of this Guide
The present Contributor’s Reference Guide has been developed to serve as the definitive orientation and operational protocol for all individuals, institutional partners, fellowship cohorts, and verified community volunteers who intend to publish scholarly and technical outputs within the Nexus Reports series, hosted on Zenodo and curated under the custodianship of the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).
The primary objective of this Guide is to articulate, in unambiguous and actionable terms, the principles, procedural steps, and compliance standards required for preparing, submitting, and maintaining high-quality research reports and technical deliverables in an open-access, clause-verifiable, and version-controlled repository environment. It is purpose-built to ensure that all submissions to Nexus Reports meet or exceed contemporary best practices for transparent, reproducible, and machine-discoverable open science, as codified by frameworks such as the FAIR Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021), and the evolving European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) standards projected for 2025 and beyond.
Specifically, this Guide provides contributors with:
A clear exposition of the editorial and governance mandates underpinning Nexus Reports as an authoritative open science channel within the Nexus Ecosystem;
Detailed guidance on structuring scholarly reports to satisfy both narrative clarity and machine-readability, ensuring consistent clause traceability and policy utility;
Stepwise instructions for leveraging Zenodo’s DOI-minting, metadata indexing, version control, and licensing architecture to maintain persistent, citable, and legally robust records;
Explicit protocols for managing revisions, errata, and scenario updates in alignment with GCRI’s scaled agile governance and continuous integration of risk intelligence;
An integrated compliance framework connecting individual submissions to overarching treaty-aligned knowledge architectures, thus facilitating cross-referencing with national working group deliverables, anticipatory action plans, and sovereign digital governance passports administered under the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF).
In form and substance, this Guide also aims to lower the operational and technical barriers for multi-lingual, multi-disciplinary, and geographically distributed contributors, including early-career researchers, policy fellows, domain experts, and civic collaborators who may be new to Zenodo or large-scale open knowledge infrastructures. By codifying a clear, stepwise model — designed for repeatability within a scaled agile ecosystem — this document ensures that Nexus Reports remains a reliable, legally defensible, and technically rigorous public knowledge commons, reinforcing GCRI’s mission to democratize access to risk intelligence and innovation governance worldwide.
Contributors are advised to read this Guide in its entirety prior to preparing any submission, to adhere strictly to the formatting, metadata, and licensing requirements herein, and to consult their National Working Group liaison or the Nexus Reports Editorial Secretariat for clarification when needed. Compliance with this protocol is mandatory for acceptance into the official Nexus Reports collection and for the issuance of a valid Digital Object Identifier (DOI) under the GCRI’s registered Zenodo Community.
1.2 Scope of Nexus Reports
Nexus Reports constitutes the official open-access publication series of the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) and serves as a central, clause-indexed repository for scholarly, technical, and policy-relevant knowledge produced within the operational ambit of the Nexus Ecosystem. Its scope extends across multiple thematic and disciplinary domains, encompassing but not limited to: disaster risk reduction (DRR), disaster risk finance (DRF), disaster risk intelligence (DRI), Earth observation and spatial data applications, high-performance computational simulations, anticipatory action planning, early warning systems, and governance mechanisms for sustainable development and climate resilience.
As a policy-aligned knowledge instrument, Nexus Reports is designed to serve a dual function:
(a) Primary Knowledge Commons: It acts as a canonical, DOI-secured public archive for all research outputs, analytical briefs, simulation findings, parametric risk models, corridor scenario plans, and decision-support artefacts generated by GCRI personnel, National Working Groups (NWGs), formal research fellows, and recognized institutional partners.
(b) Treaty-Referenced Evidence Base: It is architected to function as a direct evidentiary repository for clause-referenced policy negotiations, multi-party risk finance instruments, and anticipatory governance frameworks at subnational, national, and international treaty levels. As such, each report serves not merely as an academic publication but as an operational node within a clause-certified, legally verifiable, and audit-ready global risk governance infrastructure.
The scope of Nexus Reports thus explicitly includes, but is not limited to, the following categories of deliverables:
Peer-reviewed research reports and working papers derived from projects hosted under the Nexus Ecosystem’s modular architecture (NXSCore, NXSQue, NXSGRIx, NXS-EOP, NXS-EWS, NXS-AAP, NXS-DSS, and NXS-NSF);
White papers and scenario analyses prepared by NWGs for national or bioregional risk profiling;
Technical documentation, software release notes, and clause schema benchmarks linked via DOI to versioned source code repositories;
Policy briefs, negotiation backgrounders, and impact assessment reports intended for submission to intergovernmental organisations, treaty bodies, donor consortia, and regional risk pools;
Outputs from anticipatory action planning exercises, including parametric triggers, payout protocols, and social safeguard indices;
Any other scholarly or operational material deemed integral to the Nexus Ecosystem’s mission of delivering transparent, multi-party, clause-verifiable risk intelligence and resilience finance mechanisms.
Consistent with open science principles and the FAIR data framework, the editorial scope of Nexus Reports also extends to the publication of supporting datasets, code archives, and version-controlled models, provided they meet minimum standards for documentation, reproducibility, and licensing.
All submissions accepted into Nexus Reports must adhere to the technical, legal, and ethical conditions prescribed herein, and are subject to governance oversight by the GCRI Editorial Secretariat in conjunction with the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF) certification processes. This ensures that the published corpus remains authoritative, citation-grade, and interoperable across academic, policy, and financial governance domains, while aligning with GCRI’s mandate for agile, scalable, and treaty-compliant knowledge stewardship.
1.3 Relationship to GCRI’s Nexus Ecosystem and Open Science Principles
Nexus Reports is not a conventional research series but a purpose-built, clause-verifiable publishing channel engineered to operationalize the knowledge production and dissemination mandates embedded within the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation’s (GCRI) Nexus Ecosystem architecture. Its role is both functional and normative: it provides a trusted, open-access knowledge commons for technical and policy content while also acting as a structural enforcement mechanism for open science compliance, multi-stakeholder accountability, and sovereign-grade governance traceability.
The Nexus Ecosystem itself is designed as a modular, interoperable system composed of eight integrated modules—NXSCore, NXSQue, NXSGRIx, NXS-EOP, NXS-EWS, NXS-AAP, NXS-DSS, and NXS-NSF—each responsible for specific computational, analytical, financial, or governance functions. Together, these modules enable dynamic risk profiling, anticipatory action, real-time early warning, scenario-based simulation, and intelligent capital allocation within a clause-anchored legal-financial structure.
Nexus Reports serves as the explicit publication vector for the verifiable outputs generated across these modules and related workflows. Every report, once uploaded, assigned a DOI, and archived within the official Zenodo community, becomes a discoverable, immutable artifact that links simulation logic, parametric model benchmarks, corridor scenario results, and policy clauses to legally recognized evidence trails. This direct traceability ensures that risk intelligence remains transparent, clause-auditable, and accessible for regulatory bodies, multilateral donors, sovereign risk pools, and treaty negotiation processes.
In alignment with the latest international norms—most notably the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship, the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021), and the OpenAIRE Guidelines—Nexus Reports mandates strict adherence to open science standards:
Findable: Every submission must be metadata-rich and indexed with a unique DOI to guarantee discoverability by human and machine agents alike.
Accessible: All published content remains openly available without paywalls, ensuring compliance with public-good research mandates and funder requirements.
Interoperable: Metadata standards and structured versioning enable seamless integration into other Nexus modules, external decision support systems, and multilateral reporting channels.
Reusable: Clear licensing, robust documentation, and citation standards ensure that outputs can be verified, reproduced, and adapted by other researchers, national working groups, and policy stakeholders.
Additionally, Nexus Reports is structurally embedded within the governance logics of the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF). This means each report can be legally referenced within smart contracts, clause passports, anticipatory payout protocols, or treaty annexes, thereby bridging the traditional divide between academic publishing and enforceable policy instruments.
By institutional design, Nexus Reports thus advances GCRI’s mission to democratize access to high-assurance risk knowledge, to operationalize evidence-based resilience financing, and to provide a durable, legally defensible public record of scenarios, models, and governance clauses that underpin sustainable development and disaster risk governance at local, national, and global scales.
Contributors, therefore, are not merely authors in a scholarly sense but co-stewards of a living, clause-certified knowledge infrastructure—one that aligns technical excellence with open science norms and real-world enforceability under multi-party treaty regimes.
1.4 Intended Audience
This Contributor’s Reference Guide is expressly intended for all individuals and institutional actors engaged in producing, reviewing, or curating scholarly, technical, or policy-relevant outputs for inclusion in the Nexus Reports collection, as maintained under the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation’s (GCRI) sovereign open science framework.
The guide addresses the distinct needs of multiple tiers of contributors and governance participants, ensuring that each actor understands both their procedural responsibilities and their accountability within the broader Nexus Ecosystem’s clause-indexed knowledge architecture. Specifically, the primary audience encompasses, but is not limited to, the following constituencies:
(a) GCRI Core Research Staff and Fellows Individuals appointed under the Nexus Fellowship program or affiliated with GCRI’s permanent research clusters, including domain specialists in risk analytics, disaster risk finance, AI/ML simulations, Earth observation, and governance design. For these individuals, this guide provides definitive submission norms, versioning protocols, and governance linkages to clause passports and treaty-referenced outputs.
(b) National Working Groups (NWGs) Delegated country-level and regional-level clusters responsible for contextualizing, validating, and generating scenario-specific risk profiles and corridor-based action plans. This guide ensures NWG participants harmonize national reports with the Nexus Reports’ standardized metadata, licensing, and DOI requirements, thereby guaranteeing global traceability and multi-party policy referencing.
(c) UN Volunteers and Civic Collaborators Accredited volunteer researchers and civic actors engaged under the auspices of formal UN Volunteer agreements, civil society partnerships, or participatory action research initiatives endorsed by GCRI. This guide clarifies how these contributors prepare compliant manuscripts, observe licensing terms, and embed scenario outputs into the clause-verifiable open knowledge commons.
(d) Academic and Institutional Partners Faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers at universities, research institutes, and policy think tanks collaborating formally with GCRI through memoranda of understanding, co-fellowship appointments, or funded research programs. For this audience, the guide delineates how to align conventional scholarly outputs with the unique open science and clause-governance imperatives of Nexus Reports.
(e) Editorial Board Members, Reviewers, and Secretariat Staff Internal and external reviewers, editorial board members, and Secretariat personnel charged with verifying that all submissions adhere to established governance protocols, metadata standards, and open licensing norms. This guide serves as their operational benchmark for consistency, compliance auditing, and version control management.
(f) Donor, Regulatory, and Treaty Stakeholders (Reference Use) While not contributors per se, treaty bodies, donor agencies, development banks, and sovereign risk pools that depend on Nexus Reports for clause-backed evidence streams may use this guide to understand the provenance, version integrity, and governance certification process that make each published report legally and financially reliable.
By clarifying the expectations for each of these groups, this guide functions as an authoritative operational standard that sustains the integrity, reproducibility, and enforceability of the entire Nexus Ecosystem’s knowledge flows. Adherence to its instructions is mandatory for all submissions that seek recognition, indexing, and DOI minting under GCRI’s Nexus Reports community on Zenodo.
1.5 Governance and Editorial Oversight
The governance and editorial oversight of Nexus Reports is structured to ensure that every published output embodies the highest standards of scholarly rigor, legal defensibility, operational traceability, and open science integrity, consistent with the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation’s (GCRI) sovereign governance mission and the Nexus Ecosystem’s clause-based risk management architecture.
(a) Organisational Custodianship Nexus Reports is operationalized by GCRI under its non-profit research mandate and its special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Strategic custodianship is vested in the GCRI CB, which is responsible for ensuring that the collection aligns with GCRI’s public good mission, its national and regional working group mandates, and its obligations to multilateral donors and treaty bodies.
(b) Editorial Board Structure Day-to-day editorial oversight is delegated to a multi-tiered Editorial Board, appointed by the Central Bureau and composed of:
An Editor-in-Chief, who holds final authority on editorial policy, acceptance, and clause linkage certification.
Associate Editors for key domains, including DRR, DRF, DRI, Earth observation, AI/ML risk simulation, anticipatory governance, and treaty policy.
A pool of Section Editors and Technical Reviewers, who conduct metadata checks, clause traceability verification, version control audits, and compliance assessments with respect to FAIR data standards and open licensing terms.
This structure ensures that all submissions undergo consistent, transparent, and multi-level review commensurate with their scientific complexity, governance importance, and policy relevance.
(c) Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF) Certification An integral component of the oversight regime is the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF), which certifies that each published report meets the minimum criteria for clause verifiability, version reproducibility, and policy enforceability. NSF compliance mechanisms include:
Verification that each report is referenced or indexed by a valid clause passport, where applicable.
Validation of metadata integrity for semantic interoperability and machine-readability.
Audit of licensing declarations to ensure they are consistent with GCRI’s sovereign open science mandate.
Reports failing to meet these conditions are flagged for revision or may be rejected.
(d) National Working Group Liaison Every National Working Group (NWG) recognized under the Nexus Ecosystem appoints a designated NWG Liaison Officer, who coordinates between local authors and the central Editorial Board. This liaison is accountable for:
Verifying contributor eligibility.
Pre-screening submissions for alignment with corridor-specific scenario planning.
Assisting local contributors in resolving compliance or formatting issues before formal upload.
(e) Version Control and Retraction Protocols The Editorial Board is mandated to maintain strict version control, ensuring that all amendments, corrections, or retractions follow an auditable chain of custody. Zenodo’s native versioning tools are supplemented by GCRI’s internal clause-replay mechanisms, guaranteeing that each version remains traceable within governance workflows and treaty back-referencing.
(f) Dispute Resolution and Appeals Should a submission be contested or rejected on grounds of non-compliance or ethical breach, authors have recourse to a structured appeal process overseen by an independent panel drawn from the GCRI Ethics Council and the broader Editorial Board. Final arbitration lies with the Editor-in-Chief, whose decision is binding within the context of the Nexus Sovereignty Framework.
(g) Continuous Improvement To ensure that editorial governance remains agile, responsive, and aligned with evolving best practices in open science and digital public goods stewardship, the Editorial Board undertakes an annual review of all protocols, benchmarks them against emerging international standards (e.g., EOSC, UNESCO Open Science Recommendation), and publishes a public Editorial Governance Statement as part of GCRI’s annual Nexus Reports Impact Statement.
By codifying this robust, multi-level governance and oversight architecture, Nexus Reports must ensure that every published contribution is scientifically credible, legally certifiable, and operationally deployable within GCRI’s risk governance mission—reinforcing its value as a sovereign-grade, clause-indexed knowledge infrastructure.
1.6 Key Principles of Compliance and Good Practice
The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), as custodian of Nexus Reports, establishes the following foundational principles to govern the preparation, submission, and maintenance of all contributions accepted into this open-access, sovereign-grade knowledge commons. These principles balance scholarly freedom with enforceable standards of originality, transparency, ethical conduct, and operational integrity, ensuring that Nexus Reports remains a globally trusted repository for risk intelligence, governance innovation, and multi-disciplinary open science.
Each principle enumerated below is mandatory except where explicitly designated as discretionary or context-dependent, and all contributors are bound to observe these standards as a condition of submission, citation, and continued participation in the Nexus Reports community.
(a) Originality, Authorship Accountability, and Intellectual Freedom
All submissions must represent the bona fide intellectual work of the credited human authors, except where third-party data, pre-existing models, or AI-assisted content are properly disclosed and clearly delineated within the text. Fabrication, plagiarism, or concealed misrepresentation of authorship is categorically prohibited and constitutes grounds for immediate retraction, revocation of contributor status, and formal notification to the relevant institutional or regulatory authorities.
GCRI reaffirms each contributor’s full academic freedom to explore any topic, methodology, or disciplinary intersection within or adjacent to the Nexus Ecosystem’s thematic scope, including but not limited to DRR, DRF, DRI, Earth systems, AI governance, sustainability transitions, and emerging risk domains.
(b) Clause Linkage and Treaty Relevance (Recommended, Not Mandatory)
To support the operational and treaty-aligned mission of the Nexus Ecosystem, contributors are encouraged—though not compelled—to map findings, models, or scenarios to relevant governance clauses, corridor action plans, or treaty instruments when applicable. Where clause-linkage is unsuitable (for instance, in early-stage theoretical research, conceptual frameworks, or purely descriptive reports), authors are free to omit it without penalty, provided the work maintains a clear statement of scope and intended audience.
(c) Adherence to FAIR Data and Metadata Standards
All submissions must satisfy the FAIR principles—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable—ensuring robust discoverability and reliable reuse:
Metadata must be complete, consistent, and structured using the official Nexus Reports schema compatible with Zenodo indexing.
Authors must provide explicit descriptions of datasets, models, and algorithms sufficient for independent reproduction where applicable.
Persistent identifiers (e.g., DOIs, ORCID iDs, funding registry IDs) must be used to link authorship, versions, and related resources.
(d) Open Licensing and Unrestricted Reuse
All published material shall be governed by an open license consistent with GCRI’s sovereign public-good stewardship mandate. The recommended default is Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0). More permissive licenses are permissible if funder or institutional policies allow. Authors retain moral and scholarly rights to their work but waive unnecessary restrictions that could hinder lawful reuse, derivative innovation, or policy uptake.
(e) Version Control and Transparent Revision History
All corrections, amendments, or scenario updates must follow Zenodo’s formal versioning mechanism. Contributors shall not delete or silently overwrite prior versions. A versioned changelog describing substantive alterations must be included to enable precise referencing in downstream policy, scenario planning, and legal proceedings. Retractions, if necessary, must follow the official Nexus Reports Retraction Protocol and will be permanently flagged in both Zenodo and the GCRI master index to safeguard the public record’s integrity.
(f) Data Privacy, Sensitivity, and Community Stewardship
All contributors shall comply with applicable international and national data protection laws (e.g., GDPR, PIPEDA) and with GCRI’s internal data sovereignty protocols:
Personal or sensitive information must be anonymized or removed unless explicit, documented consent is provided.
Research involving Indigenous knowledge systems or community-contributed data must respect Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and local governance norms.
National Working Group Liaisons are accountable for verifying compliance with local legal frameworks before final submission.
(g) Rigorous Citation and Attribution Standards
Proper scholarly citation is non-negotiable. All third-party literature, datasets, software, or tools must be cited accurately and, where possible, linked via persistent identifiers such as DOIs or archival URLs. This principle preserves legal traceability, scholarly reproducibility, and treaty-aligned policy referencing.
(h) Responsible Use of Generative AI
Nexus Reports recognises the transformative potential and unique risks of generative artificial intelligence in modern scholarly production. As such, the following conditions apply to any use of generative AI:
Mandatory Disclosure: Any use of generative AI for drafting, summarisation, code generation, data augmentation, or other substantive tasks must be disclosed in a dedicated “AI Use Statement” within the manuscript or appendix.
Human Accountability: AI systems shall not be credited as authors. Ultimate responsibility for the accuracy, originality, factual correctness, and licensing compliance of AI-assisted content rests solely with the listed human contributors.
Bias and Hallucination Safeguards: Authors must independently verify all AI-generated content for factual accuracy and bias control. Empirical claims must be cross-checked against primary evidence or validated datasets.
License and IP Compatibility: Authors must ensure that AI-generated content does not violate third-party intellectual property rights or create conflicts with the declared open license.
Treaty Compatibility (if applicable): Where a report is intended for clause indexing or treaty reference, any AI-assisted content must be reviewed to ensure that it does not introduce interpretive ambiguity or compromise legal enforceability.
Failure to comply with these safeguards shall be grounds for editorial rejection or post-publication retraction.
(i) Respectful Conduct and Good Faith Participation
Contributors must interact with the editorial office, peer reviewers, NWG liaisons, and fellow authors in a professional, respectful manner. Any form of harassment, discrimination, bad-faith authorship disputes, or intentional circumvention of governance protocols shall result in immediate exclusion from Nexus Reports and may be escalated to relevant institutional or regulatory authorities.
(j) National Working Group Liaison Role
Each recognised National Working Group may appoint a Liaison Officer to:
Verify contributor eligibility.
Provide optional support for clause mapping or scenario indexing.
Serve as the local point of contact for metadata preparation, licensing questions, and governance escalation.
This structure enhances distributed quality control without limiting local innovation or knowledge sovereignty.
(k) Adaptive Governance and Annual Review
These compliance principles constitute a living standard. They shall be reviewed at minimum annually by the Editor-in-Chief in consultation with the GCRI Secretariat, the Nexus Sovereignty Framework governance board, and relevant external stakeholders to ensure continued alignment with emerging open science protocols, international data law, and trustworthy AI governance norms.
Contributors are responsible for reviewing and complying with the most current version in force at the time of submission.
1.7 Permitted Report Types and Methodological Freedom
Nexus Reports is structured to accommodate an extensive range of scholarly, technical, policy, and civic knowledge products, recognising the diversity of expertise and disciplinary cultures that converge within the Nexus Ecosystem. This diversity is a deliberate strength, enabling the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) to serve as both an authoritative clause-referenced governance repository and a dynamic, open-ended scientific commons.
To that end, contributors retain full intellectual discretion to select topics, frameworks, and modes of inquiry best suited to their research or operational objectives, provided all submissions meet the universal standards of originality, factual integrity, metadata completeness, open licensing, and version control set forth in this Guide.
(a) Recognised Report Categories
Reports may take, but are not limited to, the following forms:
Full Research Papers — Comprehensive studies presenting hypotheses, empirical evidence, rigorous analysis, and conclusions intended for long-term scholarly citation.
Working Papers — Pre-publication drafts offering provisional findings or methodological experiments, intended to invite peer input or collaborative refinement.
Technical Reports and Model Documentation — Detailed accounts of software builds, simulation logic, AI model training datasets, algorithm parameters, and validation protocols.
Policy Briefs and White Papers — Concise syntheses designed to inform decision-makers, corridor planners, or treaty negotiators of practical options and risk implications.
Scenario Reports and Corridor Action Plans — Context-specific assessments supporting early warning protocols, anticipatory action triggers, or parametric finance instruments. Clause indexing is strongly recommended for these, but not obligatory.
Data Papers and Metadata Catalogues — Structured publications accompanying datasets or code repositories, with comprehensive provenance and usage instructions.
Methodological Notes — Explanations of novel methods or experimental setups that advance the state-of-practice and enhance reproducibility.
Case Studies and Field Reports — Detailed documentation of localised pilots, participatory engagements, or Indigenous governance examples, with due ethical safeguards.
Tutorials, Protocols, and Educational Modules — Instructional material aiding capacity-building within National Working Groups or the public risk governance domain.
Multimedia Supplements and Interactive Artifacts — Audiovisual materials, interactive maps, or dashboards, uploaded with clear metadata, licensing, and technical documentation.
(b) Minimum Quality and Scholarly Rigor
Regardless of type or format, all reports must:
Uphold factual accuracy, logical coherence, and good scholarly practice.
Include complete metadata consistent with the Nexus Reports schema.
Use a recommended open license (CC BY 4.0 or more permissive).
Be submitted in well-structured, durable digital formats acceptable to Zenodo (e.g., PDF, CSV, JSON, MP4, HTML packages) and mindful of Zenodo’s file size limit of 50GB per record.
Submissions failing to meet these standards will be returned for revision or declined to protect the integrity of the public knowledge commons.
(c) Methodological and Interdisciplinary Flexibility
Authors are encouraged to:
Integrate diverse epistemologies (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, participatory design, AI-enhanced simulation).
Combine textual, visual, and computational elements into hybrid, multi-modal deliverables.
Innovate in how scenarios, policies, and community insights are captured and communicated.
(d) Optional Peer Review and Technical Validation
To preserve transparency:
Submissions intended to serve as core evidence for treaty clauses, corridor triggers, or parametric payout models may undergo internal technical validation or editorial peer check.
Working papers, conceptual essays, or exploratory analyses may bypass formal peer review but remain subject to editorial quality screening.
Contributors should clearly state in their cover note whether a report is intended for formal governance referencing, general scientific discussion, or educational use.
(e) File Format Guidance and Repository Constraints
Authors must ensure:
Textual content is submitted in standard formats (PDF for narrative, Markdown or HTML for dynamic documents).
Datasets are provided in open, machine-readable formats (CSV, GeoJSON, NetCDF).
Interactive visualisations or dashboards are shared as web-packaged archives or accompanied by source code.
Total file size does not exceed Zenodo’s 50GB limit per record; larger linked files must be split or hosted on an approved interoperable repository, with cross-references documented in the metadata.
(f) Dynamic Evolution of Permitted Formats
The Nexus Reports Editorial Board, in coordination with the GCRI Secretariat and the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF) governance node, shall review permitted report categories annually. New report types, formats, or innovative knowledge vehicles may be formally added or refined through this controlled governance pathway, ensuring that Nexus Reports remains an adaptable, future-proof repository responsive to emerging technologies and global treaty practice.
Contributors have full latitude to choose subject matter, methodological strategy, and presentation format, balanced by a clear duty to maintain scholarly quality, licensing openness, and compliance with operational constraints. Nexus Reports thus functions as both an inclusive scholarly platform and a resilient backbone for sovereign risk governance and innovation policy worldwide.
1.8 Procedural Commitments and Ethical Pledge
All individuals, research groups, institutional partners, and verified community contributors who submit work to Nexus Reports agree to uphold a binding set of procedural duties, ethical obligations, and legal acknowledgements. These conditions anchor the operational trustworthiness, cross-border enforceability, and reputational integrity of Nexus Reports as a clause-optional but governance-ready sovereign knowledge commons stewarded by the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).
(a) Procedural Commitments
By submitting any report or accompanying material to Nexus Reports, each contributor affirms that they shall:
Provide Accurate Metadata: Complete all required metadata fields truthfully and in full, using the official Nexus Reports metadata schema to ensure discoverability, interoperability, and FAIR compliance.
Apply a Permissive Open License: License the submitted work under an open, internationally recognised license (Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 is strongly recommended), enabling unrestricted public use, sharing, and derivative works with proper attribution.
Retain Copyright and Grant GCRI a Perpetual License: Retain full copyright and moral rights in the work while granting GCRI a non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to host, display, archive, index, distribute, and reference the work in any format, medium, or governance context.
Use Proper Version Control: Employ Zenodo’s versioning tools for any corrections, updates, or expansions. Prior versions must remain accessible to maintain an auditable record of changes.
Adhere to Technical and Format Standards: Submit content in durable, open formats suitable for archival preservation and treaty referencing, respecting Zenodo’s size limits and file interoperability guidelines.
Disclose Use of Generative AI: Clearly state in an “AI Use Statement” if generative AI tools were employed for drafting, analysis, translation, or model generation, describing the tool(s), purpose, and human oversight applied.
Respond Promptly to Editorial Communications: Engage constructively with editorial feedback, compliance checks, or revision requests in good faith and without undue delay.
Respect GCRI Digital Sovereignty Protocols: Acknowledge that all data, metadata, and governance records within Nexus Reports are stored, processed, and governed under GCRI’s digital sovereignty and data protection frameworks, ensuring jurisdictional resilience and operational continuity.
(b) Ethical Pledge
Contributors further pledge that they shall:
Uphold Scholarly Honesty: Ensure that all work is original, all external sources are accurately cited, and that no element is plagiarised, fabricated, or knowingly misrepresented.
Protect Privacy and Secure Consent: Comply with applicable data protection laws, anonymise or redact personal data unless informed consent has been obtained, and observe Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) standards for community-based or Indigenous knowledge.
Use Clause Indexing Responsibly (If Applied): If clause-indexing is used, ensure that policy linkages, triggers, or governance benchmarks are factually sound, evidence-based, and free of misleading representations.
Maintain Professional Conduct: Interact with editors, reviewers, National Working Group liaisons, and co-authors with respect and integrity. Any form of harassment, abuse, or intentional disruption of governance processes shall not be tolerated.
Support Knowledge Equity: Fairly acknowledge the contributions of all collaborators, including local or community partners, in line with best practice for inclusive authorship.
(c) Enforcement, Indemnity, and Governing Law
Sanctions for Breach: Violations of these commitments may result in suspension or withdrawal of publication rights, public retraction notices linked to the original DOI, notification of the contributor’s host institution, and blacklisting from future submissions for a term defined by the Nexus Reports Editorial Board, with repeat or egregious breaches potentially resulting in permanent exclusion.
Liability Disclaimer: Contributors acknowledge that GCRI, its Secretariat, and the Nexus Reports Editorial Board accept no legal liability for any loss, damage, or third-party claims arising from the use or reliance on published reports, which remain the sole legal and factual responsibility of the named authors.
Indemnity: Authors agree to indemnify and hold harmless GCRI and its editorial officers against any legal claims, costs, or damages resulting directly or indirectly from breaches of these commitments.
Governing Law and Jurisdiction: These commitments and any related disputes shall be governed by the laws of Canada and adjudicated in a competent court of jurisdiction within GCRI’s registered headquarters, unless otherwise agreed under a formal treaty or memorandum of understanding.
Contributor Agreement Binding: These procedural and ethical duties must be read in conjunction with the official Contributor Agreement. In the event of a conflict, the Agreement shall take precedence.
By affirming this Procedural Commitments and Ethical Pledge, each contributor upholds Nexus Reports as an open, resilient, and legally robust knowledge commons — trusted worldwide as both a transparent scholarly record and a clause-ready foundation for anticipatory action, sovereign risk governance, and multilateral policy development.
1.9 Applicability, Limitations, and Amendment Protocol
This Reference Guide, and in particular Sections 1.1 through 1.9, shall apply in full to all contributors, National Working Groups (NWGs), editorial staff, institutional partners, and verified civic collaborators who prepare, submit, review, or publish material under the Nexus Reports series.
These provisions operate in parallel with — and are subordinate to where specifically stated — the binding Nexus Reports Contributor Agreement and any governing treaties, corridor memoranda, or national or bioregional protocols formally recognised by the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).
(a) Applicability
Covered Persons and Entities: These policies bind all human authors, co-authors, institutional co-funders, National Working Group liaisons, UN Volunteers acting under formal GCRI deployment, and any third parties delegated editorial, technical, or governance roles under a recognised Nexus Ecosystem instrument.
Community Scope: They apply to all submissions hosted under the official Nexus Reports Zenodo Community or any future mirror repositories designated as legally equivalent by the GCRI Secretariat.
Jurisdictional Reach: In contexts involving cross-border or treaty-layered reports, these provisions shall operate to the maximum extent permitted by applicable international law and shall be read in harmony with specific corridor agreements and NSF-certified sovereign governance clauses.
(b) Limitations
Scope of Liability: GCRI does not guarantee the completeness, legal enforceability, or operational correctness of any individual report; final responsibility rests with the named authors.
Non-Override of Local Law: Nothing in this Guide shall override mandatory local laws, statutory research ethics, or data privacy requirements applicable in the contributor’s home jurisdiction. In the event of an irreconcilable conflict, local law shall prevail and the contributor must notify the GCRI Secretariat immediately.
Non-Waiver: Failure by GCRI or the Nexus Reports Editorial Board to enforce any single clause or sanction shall not constitute a waiver of its right to enforce any other provision at any time.
(c) Amendment Protocol
Periodic Review: The provisions in this Reference Guide shall be reviewed no less than once every twelve (12) months by the Nexus Reports Editorial Board in close consultation with the GCRI Secretariat, the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF) governance office, and the National Working Group governance clusters.
Approval of Revisions: Substantive amendments require the formal approval of the Editor-in-Chief, a simple majority vote of the Editorial Board, and endorsement by the GCRI Executive Council where policy, clause structure, or sovereign finance linkages may be affected.
Notice to Contributors: All approved amendments shall be published prominently on the official Nexus Reports website, appended to the Zenodo Community Guide, and circulated to all registered contributors and NWG liaisons no less than thirty (30) calendar days before taking effect.
Retroactivity: Unless expressly stated otherwise, amendments shall apply prospectively and shall not retroactively alter the rights or duties associated with previously submitted or published reports.
(d) Supersession
This Guide may be superseded or supplemented by:
The binding Nexus Reports Contributor Agreement signed by each contributor;
Any clause-certified corridor protocol or treaty provision ratified under the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF);
Any national or bioregional working group governance instrument that GCRI has formally recognised as legally equivalent and interoperable.
In affirming this Section, each stakeholder accepts that Nexus Reports governance policies remain a living, evolving legal and operational instrument, designed to maintain the highest standards of transparency, clause-verifiability, and digital sovereignty in support of global risk governance and innovation resilience.
1.10 Definitions and Interpretive Clarifications
This Section codifies the precise meaning of core terms and interpretive principles governing the preparation, submission, publication, and citation of all materials under the Nexus Reports Community. These definitions apply throughout this Reference Guide, the Nexus Reports Contributor Agreement, and any related governance instruments, unless a ratified Treaty Instrument or Corridor Charter expressly provides otherwise.
(a) Defined Terms
1. “Nexus Reports” Means the official open-access publication channel curated by the Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), hosted on Zenodo or any legally designated successor repository, for publishing scholarly, technical, and policy outputs aligned with the Nexus Ecosystem’s risk governance and innovation mandate.
2. “Contributor” Means any individual person, research group, National Working Group (NWG) member, UN Volunteer, or partner institution that prepares, co-authors, submits, or materially produces content for publication in Nexus Reports.
3. “National Working Group (NWG)” Means a formally recognised country-level or bioregional cluster within the Nexus Ecosystem, responsible for contextualising risk profiles, coordinating local scenario planning, and ensuring that submissions align with corridor governance needs and local laws.
4. “Editor-in-Chief” Means the principal editorial officer appointed by the GCRI Executive Council, vested with final authority to interpret this Guide, approve submissions, resolve disputes, certify clause linkages, and coordinate with the Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF).
5. “Editorial Board” Means the body comprising the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Section Editors, Technical Reviewers, and Governance Advisors, collectively responsible for operationalising editorial policies, technical validation, peer review (where applicable), and compliance oversight.
6. “Clause Indexing” Means the optional but strongly encouraged process of mapping a report’s findings, models, or scenario results to policy clauses, corridor scenario triggers, or treaty annexes certified under the Nexus Sovereignty Framework, facilitating direct operational use in governance or finance instruments.
7. “Treaty Instrument” Means any ratified multilateral or bilateral agreement, or any legally binding corridor governance protocol, that explicitly references or integrates Nexus Reports as an evidentiary source or clause-linked knowledge asset within the Nexus Sovereignty Framework.
8. “Corridor Charter” Means a formal governance document adopted under GCRI authority and certified by the NSF, defining the operational rules, scenario boundaries, and anticipatory action pathways for a specific geographic or thematic corridor within the Nexus Ecosystem.
9. “Generative AI” Means any computational system or service that autonomously produces text, code, synthetic data, images, or other content using machine learning, large language models, or related neural network techniques.
10. “Contributor Agreement” Means the legally binding contract each Contributor must sign before submitting to Nexus Reports, covering ownership, licensing, indemnity, confidentiality, compliance, and any special conditions not specified in this Reference Guide.
11. “Metadata” Means the structured descriptive information accompanying each report — including but not limited to title, abstract, author identifiers, funding declarations, version history, licensing details, clause references (if applicable), and related DOIs — formatted to meet Zenodo and FAIR data standards.
12. “Version Control” Means the governed practice of using Zenodo’s native versioning tools to record, archive, and index all corrections, amendments, or expansions to a report, preserving an immutable, citable audit trail.
13. “Zenodo” Means the open-access data and publication repository operated by CERN under the European OpenAIRE initiative, or any officially designated successor repository authorised by GCRI to host Nexus Reports records.
14. “Nexus Sovereignty Framework (NSF)” Means GCRI’s sovereign-grade governance and certification infrastructure that guarantees clause-verifiable knowledge stewardship, treaty alignment, corridor scenario certification, and enforceable governance traceability across all Nexus Ecosystem modules.
15. “Digital Sovereignty” Means the principle that all data, metadata, and governance artefacts under Nexus Reports are stored, processed, and governed in compliance with GCRI’s jurisdictional law and NSF certification, ensuring operational continuity and legal resilience.
16. “Corridor” Means a defined geographic or thematic zone where risk scenarios, early warning protocols, or parametric finance models are planned, validated, and deployed under an approved Corridor Charter or Treaty Instrument.
(b) Interpretive Principles
Plain Meaning: Unless otherwise defined, terms in this Guide shall be interpreted using their ordinary good-faith meaning in contemporary scholarly, technical, and governance contexts.
Number and Gender: Words importing the singular include the plural and vice versa. Words importing a gender include all genders.
Hierarchy of Instruments: In the event of conflict or ambiguity, the Nexus Reports Contributor Agreement shall take precedence over this Guide; any ratified Treaty Instrument or Corridor Charter shall take precedence over both for its defined scope.
Non-Waiver by Silence: GCRI’s or the Editorial Board’s failure to enforce any provision shall not constitute a waiver of its right to enforce the same or any other provision in the future.
Authoritative Language: This English version is the controlling text. Translations are for convenience only and do not modify the meaning of the original.
Zenodo’s Role: All references to uploading, versioning, and public access presume Zenodo as the official host unless GCRI formally designates a legally equivalent successor repository.
By adopting these Definitions and Interpretive Clarifications, GCRI ensures that Nexus Reports remains internally consistent, legally robust, operationally transparent, and globally interoperable across research, policy, and clause-based governance contexts.
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