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Heather Marquette's research has influenced aid agencies by encouraging them to recognise corruption as a primarily political issue as opposed to an economic or managerial matter. This shift in understanding has contributed to a change in perception among professionals on anti-corruption and to alterations in programmes and practices among a number of organisations including EuropeAid, AusAid and the World Bank Institute.
Marquette has directly contributed to policy thinking by providing expert technical support to the anti-corruption programmes of a range of international aid agencies and non-governmental organisations. As well as direct guidance, her commissioned advisory activity has included the provision of high-level training for donors and their partners, focussing on the politics of corruption, anti-corruption programming and the role of popular attitudes in supporting or undermining governance reform.
This case study grows out of the research and collaboration between Gould and Asha Parivar, a Third Sector organisation in Lucknow, India. Gould's research between 2005 and 2010 (5), resulting in his 2011 monograph on corruption in India (1), led directly to the development of electronic Public Information Centres since 2010, which allow economically deprived communities in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India to access information on government projects in a systematic and widespread manner. Centres/booths are run in six locations in two Indian states and assist in the filing of Right to Information (RTI) applications. Around 1,000 applications have been filed so far.
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.
Professor Richard Caplan's research explores the challenges that arise in the context of post- conflict peace- and state-building. His work on exit strategies and peace consolidation led the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) to ask him to examine specific challenges to designing and implementing transitional strategies in peace operations, and to suggest how these challenges could be met more effectively. This work initiated a process within the UN to introduce more rigorous benchmarking practices for peacebuilding, laid the foundations for the development of a common UN methodology for measuring peace consolidation and played an instrumental role in the production of a United Nations handbook on peace consolidation monitoring, entitled Monitoring Peace Consolidation - United Nations Practitioners' Guide to Benchmarking (United Nations, 2010). The handbook is being used to support practitioners engaged in peacebuilding across the UN system.
Jackson's research on post-conflict state-building has shaped processes of international intervention and internal reconciliation during and following conflicts in Africa and South Asia. His work has had impact in two main areas.
First, in Nepal where Jackson has directly contributed to securing successful implementation of the peace agreement to demobilise, rehabilitate and reintegrate 20,000 Maoist combatants though involvement in mediation between the Nepali military and government on the one hand, and Maoist combatants on the other.
Second, Jackson's research along with a government commissioned evaluation of the UK's peace intervention in Sierra Leone has resulted in the provision of expert advice on security sector reform to UK and foreign governments and non-governmental organisations, through:
This case study demonstrates how psychological and political science research has been utilised to inform policy and practice responses to violence and conflict. Work with the Forgiveness Project has utilised social-psychological research to develop the Forgiveness Toolbox. This is designed to assist key stakeholders, victims, perpetrators and civil society organisations in dealing with the psychological consequences of violence and conflict. The political consequences of violence and conflict were addressed, for example, through our collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Bosnia, which resulted in new material for their work on state and welfare reform.
The Build the Truce (BTT) project, undertaken at the University of Manchester (UoM), considers the challenges involved in establishing and maintaining a truce during times of conflict. Findings from the research provided the basis for two innovative exhibitions, co-funded by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). First, an interactive multimedia display at the Imperial War Museum London (IWML), included as an official part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Second, a Big Picture Show (BPS); part of the rolling programme at the Imperial War Museum North (IWMN). Together these exhibitions, associated public engagement activities and workshops, have both challenged and altered public perceptions of truce, as well as offering a valuable example of how complex and controversial topics can be presented within a museum setting.
This case study centres on a body of work commissioned by Transparency international UK looking at corruption in the UK. Despite the UK scoring highly on international measures, there was a concern that the extent and impact of corruption may be somewhat hidden. Our research showed that there were several areas that are of much higher risk than previously acknowledged, especially through links to organised crime. These findings have been utilised by national law enforcement agencies to inform their continuing anti-corruption and organised crime strategies. The research has also been debated at the highest political levels in the UK.
On the basis of research on the anthropology of the state and sustainable development, Dr Michelle Obeid was invited to work with two UN organisations, taking the lead in identifying key governmental and non-governmental actors to develop a National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) for Lebanon, with peace-building at its core. An inclusive process was employed, that consulted with lower rank civil servants and civil society actors. It was concluded that an official mechanism was needed to mediate the flux created by unforeseen changing governments (three between July 2009 and 2013) who tended to dismiss the work of their predecessors. Acting on Obeid's recommendations, in July 2012 the project culminated with the creation of an official task-force in the Ministry of Environment, endorsed by the Prime Minister's Office.
Cherry Leonardi's research on local justice and traditional authority in Southern (now South) Sudan has influenced government policies and international aid agency programmes in the justice and governance sectors. It informed the drafting of a local government act by the Government of Southern Sudan [text removed for publication], by emphasising the importance and resilience of chiefship as a local institution of government and justice. It has also influenced the design of internationally-funded access to justice programmes in South Sudan, by recommending a bottom- up, empirical approach to judicial reform that focuses on the experiences and needs of litigants and local justice providers.