This blog was written by Rebecca Dobson Phillips, Assistant Professor in Politics at the University of Sussex and Director of Fellowships for the GI ACE Programme.
What does the anti-corruption community need most? One answer to that question is a talented pool of researchers dedicated to finding solutions to one of the most pressing global challenges of our time.
To that end, we are pioneering the GI ACE Fellowship in partnership with our colleagues at the Interdisciplinary Anti-corruption Research Network (ICRN). The Fellowship is designed to stimulate research by early career researchers in the global south on corruption and anti-corruption. Following a highly competitive selection process, 12 Fellowships have been awarded to researchers from Georgia, Kenya, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malawi, Morocco, Tanzania and Togo. We launched the Programme at the ICRN Forum in Vienna in June, where each Fellow presented their innovative research idea to an audience of peers. The constructive, collaborative and positive environment fostered by the Forum was a perfect context for building knowledge, networks and new friendships that will all serve to cultivate and support the talents of this next generation of anti-corruption researchers.
The Fellows’ research projects touch on a diverse range of subjects related to corruption, anti-corruption, governance and integrity. From asking questions about whistleblowing practices and growing concerns about environmental corruption, to procurement risks, the efficacy of digital technologies, and the role of women in compliance reform, the research conducted under this Fellowship promises to make significant contributions to our understanding of corruption and help provide evidence-based solutions to tackle it in the real world. This aligns with GI ACE’s purpose to deliver practical, policy-relevant research on how to address corruption, and complements the research both completed and ongoing across our other GI ACE research projects.
The two-year-long Fellowship combines the provision of material resources in the form of a research stipend and series of travel grants with collaboration and co-creation activities to nurture intellectual and research capacity and build bonds across diverse anti-corruption communities. While the initial investment and focus is on the individual researchers and their projects, the more ambitious aim of the Fellowship is to energise research networks and capacity in the anti-corruption field more broadly. This aspiration is shared by the Fellowship holders, who in our initial workshops have already expressed a desire to find ways to build research networks and share the benefits of their Fellowship with others, and in doing so foster both local and global research capacity.
At a time when optimism is often as scarce as the resources available to promote positive change, it is a privilege to run a fellowship programme full of bright enthusiastic people with such innovative and constructive ideas. We are proud that GI ACE, through its UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) funding, has the capacity to invest in these excellent early career researchers. We are confident that the Fellowship is full of potential and promise and believe in the power of connection, co-creation and collaboration to promote outstanding anti-corruption research and practice.