The Basel Institute's Public Governance team has a new name: Prevention, Research and Innovation.

The name better reflects our team’s role connecting corruption research with anti-corruption practice and piloting innovative anti-corruption interventions.

Claudia Baez Camargo, who has led our research and prevention activities since 2009, said:

Corruption was on the main programme of the Munich Security Conference on 16–18 February 2024 for the first time.

At the Basel Institute we connect our IT, eLearning and training activities closely. The result is more effective and efficient capacity building that takes advantage of technological advances while keeping trainees’ learning experience at the centre.

If someone gives a healthcare worker a “gift” in return for faster treatment, is that a bribe or just a cultural expectation? Are some cultures inherently more corrupt than others? And does the meaning of corruption vary according to cultural context?

These are just some of the controversial and complex issues that scholars have asked in relation to culture and corruption.

Nominations are now open for the International Collective Action Awards 2024.

Launched in 2022, the prestigious Collective Action Awards celebrate inspiring and outstanding multi-stakeholder initiatives to raise standards of business integrity in a particular context. Two award categories are available:

How can corruption affect peace and security? Where does corruption influence or intersect with geopolitics? And how can peace-building and anti-corruption serve a common goal?

A two-hour workshop at Basel Peace Forum 2024, organised by Swisspeace, delved into these questions and more. Moderated by Gretta Fenner, Managing Director at the Basel Institute on Governance, the panel looked at some of the most critical intersections of corruption, security, peace and geopolitics.

How do corruption and security intersect? What is strategic corruption and what can we do about it?

These were two fundamental questions tackled at the Countering Strategic Corruption workshop at the 2024 Basel Peace Forum. Claudia Baez Camargo, Head of Prevention, Research and Innovation at the Basel Institute on Governance, spoke at the event. Together with her colleague Saba Kassa, the team’s Deputy Head, she highlights two key ideas:

Better management of public infrastructure projects could save significant amounts of taxpayers’ money and result in better buildings, roads and bridges. But the public officials managing the projects are often unaware of academic frameworks and tools that could help them to manage the investments more efficiently and transparently.

A new academic course developed by our Subnational Public Finance Management Strengthening Programme (Programa GFP) and the University of Piura seeks to address that issue for public officials in Peru.