3 billion articles as an information base

An accurate and reliable analysis of political risks does not – contrary to the widely shared assumptions – require secret information from intelligence services, but detailed and dependable sources of information. Via co-operations with information providers and the application of a specifically developed software, more than three billion articles p.a. or 40,000 sources, including newspapers, online journals, blogs and social media are searched for relevant information by the CONIAS algorithms. These include, for example, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). After this phase, ca. 250,000 relevant articles p.a. remain, which are subsequently evaluated and converted into approximately 180,000 measures p.a., which then enter the database. Several measures even have two or more referenced source articles. As a result of this process, CONIAS currently monitors approximately 1100 ongoing political conflicts worldwide.

During the process, continuous checks are carried out by coders, regional scientific cooperation partners and editors to ensure the quality of the information obtained. Experience and advanced software technology coupled with a large network of professional co-operation partners, enables us to quickly update our data by simultaneously applying meticulous care. These updates are executed routinely on a monthly basis. However, in special periods of crisis, a daily risk-update can be supplied.