About

The Institute for Strategic Risk and Security is an independent, non-profit NGO founded in 2025 and headquartered in Geneva. ISRS was established to address a specific gap in the global security landscape: most institutions that analyze risk do so from a distance, producing research and recommendations that rarely reach the people making decisions in real time, in difficult environments. ISRS was built to close that gap.

Its leadership and advisors bring operational backgrounds in national intelligence, cybersecurity, and field advisory work across fragile and transitional states. That experience shapes how ISRS approaches every engagement. Its personnel understand what decisions look like under pressure, and what institutions need to act on analysis rather than simply receive it.

ISRS concentrates its work across three domains: democratic resilience, cyber, and post-conflict recovery. These are areas where consequences of poor analysis or delayed response are most severe, where existing institutional capacity most often falls short, and where independent judgment, free of political affiliation or donor pressure, is hardest to find.

How ISRS Works

ISRS operates through four functions designed to reinforce each other. Its research program produces original analytical frameworks and applied policy analysis. Its Flashpoint Briefings provide rapid assessments of emerging crises for decision-makers who need clarity before events have fully developed. Its strategic missions deploy personnel directly into high-risk and post-conflict environments to support governments and institutions on the ground. Its democratic resilience work, including the Disinformation Defense Series, addresses information environment threats that undermine institutional trust and political stability.

Field experience informs the research. Research informs the briefings. The briefings surface the questions that drive the next phase of field engagement.

Confidentiality

The nature of ISRS's work requires a strict approach to confidentiality. Advising governments, operating in politically sensitive environments, and supporting partners who cannot always be identified publicly demands discretion as a baseline condition of the work. ISRS conducts engagements under Chatham House Rule or stricter terms as standard practice, maintains secure communication protocols across all partnerships, and does not publicize partner relationships without explicit authorization.

This reflects the operational realities of the environments where ISRS works, and the expectations of the governments and institutions that trust ISRS with sensitive mandates, consistent with Swiss standards for NGO operations.