This year marks the 10th anniversary of Risk in Focus, the flagship thought leadership project of the European Institutes of Internal Auditors.
Since its first publication in 2017 as “10 Hot Topics for the Internal Audit Plan”, Risk in Focus has grown into a pan-European benchmark for understanding the top risks organisations face, providing valuable insights for Chief Audit Executives (CAEs), audit committees and boards.
Over the past decade, the project has:
- Expanded from 3 to 20 participating countries at its peak
- Collected more than 5,600 completed surveys from CAEs
- Conducted over 100 in-depth interviews with audit leaders and industry experts
- Introduced roundtables to capture richer perspectives and exchange best practices
Key milestones include:
- 2019: Cybersecurity becomes the top-ranked risk for the first time
- 2020–2021: COVID-19 reshapes risk priorities and accelerates digital transformation
- 2023–2024: A “poly-crisis” of geopolitical conflict, supply chain shocks, inflation and AI disruption dominates the landscape
- 2026: The report involves 879 CAEs, 10 interviews and 5 roundtables, confirming cybersecurity as the leading risk while highlighting growing challenges in AI, human capital, and geopolitical uncertainty
Over ten years, Risk in Focus has become much more than a survey: it is now a strategic tool for internal auditors, boards and governance professionals to align audit priorities with an increasingly complex risk environment.