The AJ Andrews Institute has published the framework for its founding research initiative: the Tightrope Trust Index.

Trust is one of the most widely measured concepts in modern governance. Governments track it, international organisations benchmark it, and corporations treat it as a strategic asset. But the measurement runs almost exclusively in one direction. The question asked — by the Edelman Trust Barometer, the OECD, Eurobarometer, and the broader field of trust research — is whether citizens trust institutions.

The Tightrope Trust Index asks the opposite: do institutions trust their citizens?

The framework examines how institutions express trust — or withhold it — through the systems they design. Rather than surveying public opinion, the Index analyses institutional conduct: the policies, controls, verification structures, and design assumptions through which institutions relate to the people they serve.

The name reflects the central problem. No institution can function without limits, and no society can operate without rules. But when those limits are defined primarily by mistrust — when systems treat citizens as risks to be managed rather than participants to be trusted — the balance between institutional authority and public legitimacy begins to shift. Every society walks this line. The Index measures how steady that balance is.

The Tightrope Trust Index is currently in its conceptual and early development phase. The Institute is developing the formal research methodology in collaboration with scholars with established records in digital anthropology, institutional trust, and democratic governance. Methodological detail and initial findings will be published as the research programme progresses.