Thirteen professionals from five continents have started the second edition of the Basel Institute’s postgraduate programme on anti-corruption, the Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) Mastering Today’s Anti-Corruption Challenges. They met for the first time at an opening event in Basel and online on 2 and 3 October 2026.

The cohort includes people from Colombia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Morocco, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sudan and Zambia, as well as from several European countries, such as Germany and Switzerland, and the United States. Their professional backgrounds range from law to economics and politics, with four currently working in the public sector and others joining from private firms, non-profits and academia. Six are women, seven are men.

Over the next six months they will study together online, test ideas against each other’s experience and apply what they learn to a corruption problem from their own work.

Why anti-corruption education matters more than ever

The programme, run with the University of Basel, is one of two Basel STUDY micro-degrees we launched in 2025. Its second edition starts at a time when the world needs more people who can make anti-corruption work in practice: people who can adapt it to local conditions and focus on what actually changes behaviour.

Dr Peter Maurer, President of the Basel Institute on Governance, described the stakes in his welcome address:

People around the world are taking to the streets to demand their rights under the banner of anti-corruption. This course is designed to strengthen your operational tools and foster meaningful engagement with civil society, judicial authorities, financial intelligence units and international organisations.

Participants who complete the programme receive a CAS from the University of Basel worth 10 ECTS credits. Each also completes a study project on a real corruption challenge from their own professional context, which they present to the class at the end of the course.

Learning what works, and where

The course draws on political science, behavioural science, law and economics, and on the Basel Institute’s own projects and cases over more than 23 years. In the opening session, Professor Dr Stefanie Bailer of the University of Basel, who chairs the Study Programme Committee and is Vice-President of our Board, highlighted the value of linking academic research with the Institute’s practical work.

A recurring question in the course is why a measure that works in one country fails in another, and what it takes to change behaviour once the rules are on paper. Dr Claudia Baez Camargo, Director of our Prevention, Research and Innovation (PRI) team and lead instructor for the course, explained the thinking behind it:

We do research not for the sake of research, but to generate rigorous, evidence-based knowledge that can be translated directly into practice. Ultimately, our mission is to make a real impact in the world.

She teaches alongside Dr Saba Kassa, Deputy Director of the PRI team, who led the cohort’s first two live sessions on the Saturday, and Dr Jacopo Costa, Senior Specialist, PRI.

Countering corruption in a changing world

The opening session gave participants a taste of the perspectives ahead.

Dr Ramadhani Marijani of the University of Dodoma in Tanzania presented Afrimeter 2063, a proposed way of measuring corruption’s impact on communities that builds on local concepts such as Ujamaa in Tanzania and Harambee in Kenya.

Huma Yusuf, Head of Financial Services Responsible Investing and Director of Business Integrity at British International Investment, showed how bribes for fraudulent licences can sit behind disasters such as the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh.

A panel with Daniel Demeter of the Alliance for Integrity in Brazil and Irenka Krone-Germann, CEO of cinfo, a network of development organisations, turned to the skills that matter on the job, from institutional diplomacy to empathy.

A growing alumni community

Two speakers were graduates themselves. Dr Marijani completed the first edition of the CAS in 2025/26 and returned as a keynote speaker.

Julio Petrucci, a public prosecutor in the Province of Buenos Aires who completed the sister programme, CAS Combating Financial Crime Through Asset Recovery, in August 2026, told the new cohort what the course had meant for him:

When I applied for the CAS, I already had many years of experience in criminal investigations, but crime was changing and I felt that I needed new tools and an international perspective. The CAS really marked a before and an after in my professional career. What I valued most was the practical approach: we worked with real problems, real cases and practical tools that I could connect directly with my daily work as a prosecutor.

Alumni of both first-edition programmes were invited to join online, and one, based in Switzerland, attended in Basel.

Financial support opens the door

Several of the 13 participants are studying with financial support from the Gretta Fenner Scholarship Fund, named after the Institute’s late Managing Director. We thank our main donors Kellerhals Carrard, the Chandler Foundation, the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators and, jointly, ECO Strategic Communications, Bonifassi Avocats and Bennett Jones.

Rueben Lifuka, Zambia Country Director of the Chandler Foundation, joined the event online from Lusaka. He spoke about the Foundation’s focus on building cultures of integrity and explained:

We see a strong synergy between the work of the Chandler Foundation and that of the Basel Institute on Governance. Both recognise that addressing corruption requires not only effective laws and institutions, but also knowledge, professional capability, leadership, collaboration and the willingness to continually adapt our approaches to a changing environment. The Chandler Foundation is proud to be associated with this initiative.

Julio Petrucci, who took part in the asset recovery programme with financial support from the Scholarship Fund, put the value in a nutshell:

When you support a prosecutor, an investigator or another professional, the impact of that support does not end with that person. What we learn goes back with us to our institutions, our cases and our countries.

We are deeply grateful to all donors to the scholarship fund for their generous support.

What’s next and how to get involved

We hope to see many of the cohort come to Basel in person for the closing event in April 2027.

Dates for the next intake of both Basel STUDY programmes will be announced soon; to hear first, sign up to our newsletter and tick “Events and courses”.

To support future participants, visit the Scholarship Fund donations page or email study@baselgovernance.org.