Unlocking strategic clarity: How CaNeTA is transforming risk management for industry
- Tracey Pearce-Sampson
- Oct 15
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 5
A new era has begun - Libero AI and The University of Queensland have partnered to operationalise CaNeTA - the network-based risk intelligence engine that is unlocking clarity for industry leaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Causal Network Topology Analysis (CaNeTA) provides a network-driven approach to risk management that reveals hidden interconnections and actionable insights for industry leaders.
Libero AI and The University of Queensland (UQ) are enabling industry leaders to see beyond isolated risks and orchestrate resilient, agile organisations.
With risk solutions powered by AI and CaNeTA, organisations can move away from reactive firefighting and build enduring strategic advantage through causality-driven decision making.
Most business leaders recognise the challenge of managing diverse risks - regulatory compliance, safety incidents, cybersecurity, supply chain disruption - but few realise how deeply these risks are intertwined.
Traditional tools tend to silo each threat, ignoring the dynamic web of cause-and-effect that shapes business outcomes. CaNeTA is an advanced network approach designed to uncover these connections and empower executives and leaders to lead with new clarity.
What is CaNeTA? Developed by The University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute, Causal Network Topology Analysis (CaNeTA), is a risk management and decision-support methodology that models and analyses the risk landscape of a project or operation by representing it as a network of causally linked events.
The problem with traditional risk management
The old way of risk management - listing hazards and risks one by one in a register - disguises the true complexity of industrial systems. When things go wrong on a mine site or in a processing plant, they rarely stay contained.
A single equipment failure or procedural lapse might not just cause one injury or delay; it can cascade into:
production shutdowns
environmental releases
regulatory scrutiny, and
cultural damage across teams.
The majority of existing risk management tools fail to reveal these chain reactions, leaving the “hidden levers” of systemic vulnerability invisible. As a result, leaders are often blindsided by the ripple effects that transform an isolated near miss into a multi-faceted incident.
CaNeTA: Revealing the web of risk
CaNeTA transforms risk registers into intelligent maps, detailing not only each individual threat but how they interact within the system.
This approach enables you to:
See how risks connect, revealing their real impact across the business.
Discover vulnerabilities where a single event can ripple through your organisation.
Prioritise action and investment, focusing on risks with the greatest potential for systemic disruption or stability.
Test business resilience by simulating what happens when key risks are controlled or mitigated.
In industries where production, safety, regulation, and reputation are tightly coupled, these insights drive smarter decisions and stronger outcomes.
Why Causal Context is critical in managing safety and risk
Modern enterprises operate within vast digital networks, global supply webs, and multifaceted regulatory landscapes.
A single safety failure can ripple far beyond the initial event such as:
halting production
damaging of equipment
eroding trust across the operation.
Only by mapping causal networks can leaders anticipate the impacts, act quickly, and move from symptom-chasing to root-cause resolution.
Making safety and risk metrics actionable
CaNeTA takes sophisticated network science and makes it practical for executives and leaders. By using clear metrics that characterise the network structure, leaders know where to dedicate resources, which controls deliver broad protection, and how to anticipate and contain risks before they escalate.
Example Metric and business value in plain terms:
Degree (In/Out):
How many arrows connect a risk:
Shows influential risks versus vulnerable ones.
The number of arrows leaving a risk shows how influential it is in the network.
The number of arrows entering a risk shows how vulnerable it is.
Betweenness Centrality
Frequency as a connector:
Identifies “gatekeeper” risks that, if unaddressed, link failures across the system.
These gatekeepers are disproportionately powerful at stopping incident propagation.
Closeness Centrality (In/Out)
Nearness to other risks.
Highlights points where impacts can spread rapidly.
High out-closeness = a great “starting point” for fast risk propagation.
High in-closeness = a prime “landing point” for risk impacts - it can be reached quickly from many other risks, so it’s easily and rapidly affected.
Eigenvector Centrality
Connectedness to other critical risks:
Reveals “power brokers” in the risk ecosystem.
Captures the idea that a risks influence comes from being embedded among influential neighbours, not just having many links.
Robustness Analysis
Simulates effects of interventions:
Shows which actions truly build resilience.
Bringing these breakthrough AI tools and capability to business
The partnership between Libero AI and The University of Queensland fuses AI tools and CaNeTA’s breakthrough capabilities to provide industry with rapid understanding of their risk environment to develop resilience and strategic clarity. By seeing risk as a dynamic network, executives and leaders can finally lead proactively - investing with confidence, responding quickly, and building organisations that don’t just survive the next disruption, but thrive in complexity.
Keen to know more?
Join us at our upcoming 'Solving Safety and Risk Challenges' event in Brisbane, Qld (17th November 2025), where an expert panel will showcase how these AI innovations are setting new standards globally for risk management, legislative compliance, hazard identification, and continuous safety improvement.
