Transparency & Scope Disclosure

Understanding what the ISI measures — and what it does not.

What the ISI Measures

Concentration of external dependencies — how much a country relies on a small number of external sources for strategic inputs.
Structural patterns — whether dependency is broad or narrow across trade partners.
Cross-axis comparison — how concentration varies across financial, energy, technology, defense, critical inputs, and logistics domains.

What the ISI Does NOT Measure

Risk or threat level. High concentration on a stable, allied partner is structurally different from concentration on an adversarial source. The ISI cannot distinguish between the two.
Policy prescriptions. A high HHI score does not inherently mean action is needed. Concentration may be economically rational, geographically determined, or historically entrenched.
Quality or resilience of supply chains. The index quantifies partner distribution, not the robustness, redundancy, or substitutability of those flows.
Non-EU dependencies. Only EU-27 member states are assessed. Non-EU countries, candidate states, and micro-states are outside scope.
Intra-EU dependencies. Trade flows between EU member states may or may not be captured depending on the axis definition. Refer to each axis's inclusion/exclusion documentation.
Geopolitical context. Scores are purely mathematical (HHI). They do not incorporate diplomatic relationships, alliance structures, or sanctions regimes.

Known Limitations

Unweighted aggregation. The composite treats all axes equally. This is a simplification — energy dependency may be more strategically critical than logistics dependency for some states.
Data vintage. Scores reflect the reference window stated on each page. They do not auto-update and may lag real-world shifts.
Channel coverage. Not all axes have the same number of data channels. Axes with fewer channels may be less robust.
Missing data. Some country-axis combinations may be missing due to data unavailability. The composite is then computed over available axes only, which may bias comparisons.

Frontend Architecture Note

This frontend is a pure rendering layer. It performs zero computation, zero data transformation, and zero business logic. Every number, classification, warning, and description displayed on this site is served verbatim from the backend API. If a number appears incorrect, the issue is in the backend materialization pipeline, not in the frontend.