Research themes
Our research is organised around key themes that examine how corruption operates across global systems, sectors, and governance levels – providing the evidence base for smarter, targeted interventions.
Latest publications
Insights and evidence from the frontlines of anti-corruption research – highlighting what’s changing, why it matters, and what works.
Unplugging Illicit Offshore Architecture
CSD's Policy Brief No. 165 examines how Russia’s offshore financial architecture has adapted - not collapsed - under post‑2022 sanctions, becoming more fragmented, opaque and strategically embedded across European legal and financial systems.
Strategic Corruption: The Nexus Between Russian Illicit Financial Flows and Offshore Finance
Building on CSD's Shadow Economies research, this report examines how Russia has transformed offshore finance into an instrument of geopolitical influence.
Fighting illicit financial flows: key learnings from GI ACE research
This synthesis document presents insights from GI ACE research on the topic of illicit financial flows (IFFs). The synthesis is based on GI ACE publications produced between 2020 and February 2026, including research reports, journal articles, books, and policy briefs.
Madagascar at a crossroads: breaking the cycle of state capture
An analysis of Madagascar’s 2025–26 political upheaval, exploring how state capture has shaped governance, the opportunities and risks of the current transition, and lessons from global efforts to dismantle entrenched captor networks.
The Kleptocratic Enterprise: Lessons from organised crime to target transnational corruption and strengthen asset recovery in the UK
Highlighting a disconnect between the UK’s ambition to be a global leader in the fight against corruption and illicit finance and its weak track record in confiscating assets derived from kleptocracy, a new research paper by Maria Nizzero, John Heathershaw…
Public procurement datasets underpinning the project on corruption risks and natural disasters
The project “The Corrupting Effect of Political Connections in Public Procurement through Crises” is releasing datasets on public tenders across 13 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Dominican Republic, France, Georgia, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Paraguay, Peru, and Ukraine. Alongside the republished structured data gathered…
GI ACE across the globe
Brazil
- Civil service reform and anti-corruption in developing countries: Tools and evidence from eight countries in four developing regions
- The corrupting effect of political connections in public procurement through crises
- Corruption in Paradise: An ecology of money laundering through real estate in the touristic global south
Chile
Democratic Republic of Congo
Georgia
India
Indonesia
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Malawi
Moldova
Nepal
Nigeria
South Africa
Tanzania
- Accountability through practical norms: Civil service reform in Africa from below
- Addressing bribery in the Tanzanian health sector: A behavioural approach
- Harnessing informality: Designing anti-corruption network interventions and strategic use of legal instruments
- Fighting high-level corruption in Africa: Learning from effective law enforcement
- Ethical border trading between Kenya and Uganda for small-scale businesses
Uganda
- Civil service reform and anti-corruption in developing countries: Tools and evidence from eight countries in four developing regions
- Informal governance and corruption: Transcending the principal-agent and collective action paradigms
- Crisis emergencies, state responses and ‘windows’ of corruption in Uganda
- Can positive public recognition lead to good governance?
- Ethical border trading between Kenya and Uganda for small-scale businesses
