Institutional Review Index Whitepaper
The Institutional Review Index (IRI) is Terra Vita Hub’s reviewer-assurance and meta-governance layer: a transparent, evidence-linked mechanism for reviewer behaviour, reviewer consistency, bias and divergence detection, programme calibration, and cross-programme comparability.
Where this document belongs
This whitepaper sits with the public Institutional Review Index, the Institutional Assurance Layer, Governance Architecture, and the Governance Spine & Assurance Annexes. It completes the public explanation of the three assurance layers: structure, proof, and reviewer oversight.
Governance Spine — controlled structureIAL — proof and reconstructionIRI — reviewer assurance and calibration
Authority boundary
The IRI supports oversight, calibration, and reviewer-process assurance. It does not replace human reviewers, statutory decision-makers, procurement bodies, auditors, approved MRV methodologies, sovereign authority, or financial decision-makers.
Governance stack position
| Layer | Question answered | Institutional function |
|---|---|---|
| Governance Spine | Is the operating structure controlled? | Defines evidence intake, reviewer routing, workflow controls, approval posture, audit lineage, and export readiness. |
| Institutional Assurance Layer | Can the proof be reconstructed? | Links evidence, reviewer attribution, audit trails, controls, and assurance artefacts into a verifiable proof environment. |
| Institutional Review Index | Can the reviewer process itself be trusted? | Evaluates reviewer behaviour, consistency, calibration, bias, divergence, and cross-programme comparability. |
Core IRI components
Scoring and safeguard posture
The whitepaper defines IRI scoring as evidence-linked and explainable. Scores and alerts must be reconstructable from source evidence, reviewer action, rationale, controls, programme context, thresholds, and audit records. Bias, divergence, and drift signals are oversight prompts; they are not automatic disciplinary actions or final decisions.
Institutional use cases
The IRI is relevant where review decisions must remain trusted across institutions, programmes, countries, reviewers, evidence types, or funding cycles. It supports ministries and national authorities, DFIs and development banks, climate funds and donors, auditors and fiduciary reviewers, programme management offices, and portfolio governance teams.
Minimum acceptance criteria
| Criterion | Reviewer test |
|---|---|
| Reconstructability | Can every IRI signal be traced to evidence, decision, rationale, reviewer, criteria, threshold, and timestamp? |
| Explainability | Can an authorised reviewer understand why a score, flag, or alert exists? |
| Authority boundary | Does the IRI avoid making approvals, release decisions, statutory determinations, or MRV certifications? |
| Role governance | Are reviewer-level details visible only to authorised users? |
| Sovereign-safe export | Do exports respect jurisdiction, residency, programme, and disclosure rules? |
| Human oversight | Are bias, divergence, and drift alerts routed to human review before operational consequence? |
Whitepaper preview
The PDF includes the full whitepaper, diagrams, output register, minimum data schema, committee review questions, and glossary.