Category Archives: Announcement

Announcement: 9th Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network Forum — Call For Papers

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Ilona Wysmulek, Assistant Professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences and a leader of the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN), provides the following announcement, which may be of interest to many GAB readers:

The Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN) will be holding its 9th ICRN Forum for early-career corruption researchers and practitioners in June 12 to 14, 2025, at the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna. The ICRN Forum is a dynamic gathering of international and interdisciplinary early career researchers working on (anti-)corruption and integrity. Participants will have the opportunity to present their research, exchange ideas, start collaborative projects and take part in co-creation sessions in the field. This year, it is also an opportunity for researchers from OECD ODA countries to apply for the two-year Governance & Integrity Fellowship, which will start at ICRN 2025. The Fellowship includes research training, mentoring and a small research grant. It also includes sponsorship to attend the Forum in Vienna to present a research proposal.

Those interested in applying, may do so here. Applicants are required to fill in the registration form, choose your session type and follow the guidelines. ICRN Forum welcomes submissions to four types of sessions:

(1) Promotion  – presentations of advanced-stage research that is nearing completion or has been completed.  This includes work where the researcher has already conducted fieldwork/collected data, undertaken some degree of analysis and produced some results. We also encourage submissions that focus on promoting completed work, discussing the challenges of fieldwork, and/or possible avenues of analysis based on material already collected.

(2) Work in Progress  – presentations of researchers currently at the early stages of their research process who wish to discuss their research design, expected/potential fieldwork issues (i.e., before data collection), identified research gaps, and contribution statements. The objective of these sessions is for presenters to benefit from feedback on the initial phase of their research work.

(3) Co-creation  – sessions dedicated to developing new research ideas and fostering open collaboration projects. These may include concepts for joint publications, teaching initiatives, or the organization of conference panels, as well as more innovative approaches to advancing corruption research through discussions of methodologies or data collection techniques. Applicants to a co-creation session are expected to volunteer to moderate (chair) the session. Proposals for a co-creation session must include a clear description of objectives, procedures, guiding questions, and any other elements considered relevant for the successful holding of discussions.

(4) New ideas from the Global South (fellowship programme)  – presentations of research proposals by selected Governance & Integrity Fellows. These proposals should outline a plan for research that has not yet been conducted. The sessions will provide the opportunity for discussion and constructive feedback.

For the Promotion, Work in Progress or Co-creation sessions, a 300-word abstract is required. To become a  Governance & Integrity Fellow and present at the “New ideas from the Global South” session, a  500-word research proposal, a 300-word motivation statement  and a  2-page CV are required.

There is no registration fee, but participants would bear travel and accommodation expenses. Governance & Integrity Fellows will be supported by a travel and accommodation grant. Any questions can be sent to the organizing team at icrn2025@ceu.edu

Application Deadline: Monday, February 3, 2025.

Where? Central European University (CEU), Vienna, Austria

When? Thursday, June 12, to Saturday, June 14, 2025

Who? Early-career scholars and practitioners studying (anti-)corruption and integrity

Launching the Fellowship: Researchers living and working in the OECD ODA country can apply to a two-year Governance & Integrity Fellowship that launches at ICRN 2025.

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Dan Hough

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Professor Dan Hough of the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption about his new book, Foul Play: Tackling Football’s Integrity Problem. Professor Hough discusses how he applies analytical frameworks from the corruption and governance fields to analyze the integrity challenges facing football, both on and off the pitch. The discussion also covers how debates over integrity in football connects to broader debates about how to encourage integrity in other areas.
You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:
KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

New Podcast Episode, Featuring David Jancsics

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Professor David Jancsics of the San Diego State University School of Public Affairs about about his his research on the sociology of corruption. Drawing on sociological and other theoretical insights, Professor Jancsics proposes classifying types of corruption using two cross-cutting dimensions–the type of resource transfer and the type of client–and uses these dimensions to develop a new typology of corruption that identifies for basic types: (1) market corruption, (2) social bribe, (3) corrupt organization, and (4) state capture. The discussion goes into particular depth regarding that fourth category, exploring the problem of state capture in Hungary. The interview also touches on another line of Professor Jancsics’ research, concerning corruption at borders.
You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:
KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

Opportunity for Civil Society Organizations Concerned with Corruption to Provide Input to 4th International Conference on Financing for Development

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The UNCAC Coalition, a global network of close to 400 civil society organizations in over 120 countries committed to furthering implementation and monitoring of the UN Convention against Corruption, urges CSO’s working on corruption to provide input to the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4).

UN Member States will there decide how to resource the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals, international development, and support reform of the international financial architecture. 

The Conference will take place from 30 June to 3 July 2025 in Spain. The consultation that will inform the negotiations is open until 15 October COB EST (find more details below).For corruption to feature prominently as a cross-cutting issue, it is crucial that as many civil society organizations and other stakeholders as possible make their own submissions.

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New Podcast Episode, Featuring Tom Firestone and Scott Greytak

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After a brief late-summer hiatus, a new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Tom Firestone, a partner at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, and Scott Greytak, the Director of Advocacy at Transparency International US, about the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA), a new and groundbreaking piece of US federal legislation that makes it a crime for any foreign official to demand or accept a bribe from an American or American company, or from any person while in the territory of the United States. The conversation touches on the scope of the act, how it relates to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the effects that the law may have on anticorruption enforcement efforts in other countries, and the challenges related to FEPA enforcement.
You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:
KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Anna Petherick and Ortrun Merkle

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Anna Petherick, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, and Ortrun Merkle, a Research Fellow at the United Nations University-Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute. The interview focuses on gender and corruption, and in particular on the problem of sexual corruption–how to conceptualize this topic, and how to design effective policy responses to it. You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

UNCAC Coalition Seeks Input on Improvements to UNCAC Implementation Review Mechanism

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GAB just learned of the UNCAC Coalition’s request for comments on a paper recommending ways to strengthen review of state’s compliance with the provisions of the UN Convention Against Corruption. Though the timeline is tight (August 8) and it’s the height of vacation season for Northern Hemisphere readers, please take a moment to examine the paper and offer thoughts. This is an important initiative by one of the NGOs leading the fight to combat corruption in all nations.

The UNCAC Coalition is launching a campaign calling for States to make the UNCAC review mechanism #FitForPurpose. The aim is for the next UNCAC Conference of the States Parties (CoSP) in 2025 to agree on a stronger review mechanism for the next review phase. We want to make sure that our campaign reflects the experiences and views of our global anti-corruption community.

The Coalition’s proposals to strengthen and improve the IRM are described in this Google Doc – please provide your input and thoughts by 8 August, by adding comments there (including your name and organization).

We are seeking your feedback on 

  1. whether there are elements that are missing or could be better formulated, 
  2. whether you agree with the proposed measures, and
  3. which elements should be prioritized.

We will use your input and feedback to refine the priorities of our advocacy over the next one and a half years as States discuss and negotiate what the next phase of the UNCAC IRM will look like. 

There is wide agreement that the UNCAC review mechanism in its current phase has numerous weaknesses that make it ineffective in holding States to account for their anti-corruption commitments, including a lack of transparency and inclusiveness, a lengthy and inefficient review process and no structured follow-up process.

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Lucio Picci

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Lucio Picci, a professor of economics at the University of Bologna, about his recent work on rethinking the current anticorruption paradigm. Professor Picci explains why he thinks we need to pay more attention to potential “side effects” of anticorruption discourse, particularly the risk that the anticorruption agenda will be hijacked by populists to support political goals–as we have seen, he notes, in Brazil, Russia, and the United States. Professor Picci also discusses his earlier work on corruption measurement, including approaches to measuring corruption at the subnational level. You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Emmanuel Mathias

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.(Actually, this one isn’t that new anymore–it was released a couple of weeks ago–but I was traveling then and wasn’t able to do the update. Sorry for the delay!) In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Emmanuel Mathias, the Head of the Governance and Anti-Corruption Division at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The interview covers the main pillars of the IMF’s 2018 Framework for Enhanced Engagement on Governance, and provides insights into how the IMF approaches its anticorruption work.

You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:

KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

Announcement: Safeguarding Carbon Markets Challenge

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Phyllis Dininio, the Chief of Party for the USAID-funded Countering Transnational Corruption Grand Challenge, contributes the following announcement:

Carbon markets, which enable the trading of carbon credits and emission allowances, can help reduce carbon emissions by channeling funds from those seeking to offset their carbon emissions to those who can reduce emissions through conservation, renewables, forest protection, and other initiatives. Yet carbon markets entail important corruption risks. To take just a few examples:

  • In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the head of the ministry that manages forests embezzled around $38 million of funding from REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), which provides a framework to give developing countries payments in exchange for reducing deforestation.
  • Also in the DRC, a French oil company and its local partner leased 70,000 hectares of land from the government to offset emissions by planting acacia trees; local farmers claim they were displaced from this land without appropriate consultation or compensation by the government.
  • In Slovakia, the government sold about 15 million tons of carbon offset units for half their market price to a firm that turned out to be a shell company run by people connected to the government; that firm turned around and sold the units for their market value, making $47 million.

To help address these sorts of problems, the USAID-funded Countering Transnational Corruption (CTC) Grand Challenge, in partnership with BHP Foundation and the Global Partnership for Social Accountability, has launched the Safeguarding Carbon Markets Challenge. The CTC Grand Challenge team is hoping to make awards of up to $500,000 in February 2025. And will accept concept notes until mid-August. Possible innovations might ways to improve procurement, certification, and licensing practices in carbon markets; efforts to improve oversight, transparency, and accountability; employing data transparency and risk assessment tools; improving land use tracking; and empowering communities, environmental journalists, and diverse civil society groups. The CTC team is also looking for partners to help with disseminating the call for proposals, serve as judges, support solvers as mentors or in testing out their solutions, provide further financial support to the challenge, or in other ways so please check out the website and get in touch.