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Professor Patrick Dunleavy and Dr Joachim Wehner have led research on improving public budgeting and performance auditing. This research has transformed the quality and coverage of OECD data, with a direct impact on processes of peer learning across 34 OECD member states as well as specific reforms. Later work for the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) created the first dataset on government budgeting practices across Africa, which is a valuable tool for guiding budgetary reform on the continent. In addition, the research into performance audit practice has underpinned work with the European Court of Auditors to develop research methods in `value for money' (VFM) studies. This work has improved financial reporting to the European Parliament and wider professional and public audiences.
Corruption research in the University of Surrey, has focused on analysing the gaps in anti-corruption strategies and suggestions for improvements have impacted in two ways:
(1) a contribution to discussions at the policy-making level of international organisations (the OECD and the UN) resulting in recommendations for changes, and
(2) the transfer of the experience and expertise gained in survey methodology adopted in the Surrey `Corruption in International Business' project to the questionnaire design and content of three projects — Bribery in the UK, National Integrity Survey and Integrity in the Defence Sector — conducted by the UK chapter of Transparency International (TI), the globally influential anti-corruption policy-influencing Civil Society Organisation.
Since surveys play a central role in informing and driving policy making to combat corruption, they need to be founded on a robust methodology.
The North East Economic Model (NEEM) was designed and developed at Durham University Business School (DUBS) from 2003. Customized to the regional economy, the aim of the research was for NEEM to model intra- and extra-regional economic relationships to provide quantitative estimates/projections of the impact of both long-term economic trends and shorter-term economic `shocks'. Its application has had significant impacts on policy practitioners in the region by: (1) facilitating more robust evidence-based policy analysis; (2) giving rise to knowledge transfer to policy-makers regarding the structure and workings of the regional economy; and (3) acting as a catalyst for an extended regional policy-modeling capacity. By influencing professional practice, it has had demonstrable impacts on regional economic policy, regional economic restructuring and local planning.
Coombes' research to advance spatial-analysis methodology has re-defined Travel-to-Work Areas (TTWAs) — the only official UK boundaries defined by academics — and produced three distinct strands of impact.
Because corruption involves illegal activities of public officials, data about the scale and objects of bribery is not readily available. Without such evidence, policymakers are handicapped in identifying points for effective intervention. Rose's survey research on post-Communist countries developed innovative measures to monitor the payment of bribes by citizens for public services. Transparency International (TI) is the world's leading non-governmental organisation campaigning against corruption, and it has incorporated the survey methodology in its key research tool, the Global Corruption Barometer (GCB). From 2008 to 2013 Transparency International has conducted three major rounds of Global Corruption Barometer surveys that interviewed upwards of 450,000 people in more than 110 countries on every continent. Results have been disseminated worldwide through the 90 national chapters of Transparency International. Rose's expertise in sampling has also been used to improve value-for-money expenditure on GCB surveys in the many developing countries it covers.