The first consortium meeting of ANTICORRP took place on May 20th-22nd in Gothenburg, Sweden, hosted by the project’s coordinating organization, the Quality of Government Institute at University of Gothenburg. The event gathered representatives of all 21 consortium partners and marked the official beginning of the research activities foreseen in the five-year project, which is financed by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7).
The first day of the event began with the keynote speech by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, professor of Democratization at the Hertie School of Governance and coordinator of the institution’s participation in the project. In her presentation, she highlighted the central questions that the project addresses with regards to the understanding of corruption and the elaboration of more effective anti-corruption policies. She also discussed the social and policy relevance of the project’s contributions to the European context and to the donor community in general.
The opening session was followed by a meeting of the project’s Steering Committee, composed by representatives of the largest consortium partners, who are responsible for establishing guidelines for the work of all project members and monitoring the compliance of the work conducted by partners in relation to the consortium’s commitment to the funding organization.
The specific activities of each of the project’s 13 work packages were the focus of the second and third days of the meeting. The consortium members participating in each work package met in parallel to discuss conceptual and methodological points related to their activities and organizational issues to how they will be conducted and coordinated among the collaborating institutions. Additionally, the activities envisioned as part of the work package for dissemination, led by Transparency International, were presented to all participants and synergy opportunities with dissemination platforms already developed and maintained by other consortium partners were discussed.
The project’s next large event will be an international workshop to take place in late October at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, where participants of three work packages will gather to present their latest research developments within the scope of ANTICORRP and establish the next steps to be taken for the duration of the project. The presentations will be open to the participation of students and international scholars.
More detailed information about ANTICORRP and its objectives can be found in other sections of againstcorruption.eu.