The framework structures systemic risk interactions along three independent dimensions: mechanism, topology, and temporality. Combining them helps explain why the exact same interaction type can remain localized in one system yet generate cascading failures in another.
It links system-wide disruption with systemic vulnerability: interaction structures explain how failures propagate, while vulnerability structures explain why some systems are predisposed to amplify or retain those failures.
The three dimensions
Systemic risk is understood as an emergent property of interconnected systems — it arises when triggering disturbances activate pre-existing vulnerabilities through cascade-permissive interaction structures. This explains why moderate-magnitude hazards can trigger disproportionate impacts and why such events exhibit heavy-tailed loss distributions driven by interaction-induced feedback processes.
The framework synthesises two complementary analytical perspectives that remain largely disconnected in the literature. The first approaches systemic risk as system-wide disruption resulting from cascading, compounding, and cross-system interactions. The second frames it through systemic vulnerability — a persistent vulnerability core shaped by long-term socio-economic, institutional, cultural, and governance processes.