Anti-Corruption Research Challenge 2027

The OECD is inviting researchers, students and practitioners from diverse regional and disciplinary backgrounds to propose novel insights using the OECD Public Integrity Indicators (PIIs), create data visualisations and provide actionable evidence for anti-corruption policies across OECD Member and partner countries.

Submissions can focus on either of the two below areas:

• The effects of integrity on wider economic or social outcomes
• The effectiveness of anti-corruption and public integrity policies, regulations and practices at the global, regional or national level

Submissions that show relevance for current challenges and opportunities of OECD Members and partners will be prioritised. Triangulating PII data with other data sources is welcome.

Submissions should take the form of research papers of no more than 2,000 words in length, written in English or French, and containing at least one original PII data visualisation.

Submissions can be authored or co-authored by no more than three contributors, whose full names and affiliations should be stated in the paper. If applicable, the code used for data analysis must be enclosed.

Submissions will only be received at the following email address: PublicIntegrityIndicators@oecd.org, with "Research Challenge Submission" as the subject line.

The deadline for submissions is 8 January 2027. Entries after the deadline will not be considered.

Submissions will be evaluated by a jury of international experts (to be announced) based on five equally weighted dimensions:

• Originality of the proposal
• Policy relevance in anti-corruption and public integrity
• Comprehensiveness of analysis
• Clarity of the argument
• Presentation

The winner(s) of the research challenge will be invited to present their work at the next OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum in March 2027 and to contribute an OECD blog entry summarising their paper. The OECD will cover travel and accommodation expenses.

The OECD Public Integrity Indicators (PIIs) measure countries’ resilience to corruption risks and provide actionable data on corruption vulnerabilities across executive, legislative and judicial branches to support decision-makers in strengthening national integrity systems. The portal contains data on 38 OECD Member countries and 26 OECD partners across four dimensions:

• Strategy (quality of the strategic framework)

• Accountability of public policymaking (covering lobbying, political finance, conflict-of-interest prevention, and transparency of public information)

• Risk management (risk management, internal control and internal audit)

• Justice (Integrity of the justice and disciplinary system for civil servants)

The PIIs fill a vacuum of reliable evidence on what steps governments should take to curb corruption risks, drawing on the OECD Recommendation on Public Integrity and existing international normative frameworks from bodies such as the OECD, the United Nations, the European Union, and the Council of Europe. The data can also be employed for private sector organisations’ corruption risk assessment.

Based on administrative data instead of public perceptions or expert ratings, the PIIs combine both indicators on the strength of laws and regulations (de jure) and indicators on their implementation in practice (de facto). Most indicators consist of a checklist of “fulfilled” or “not fulfilled” criteria, supplemented with several numerical key performance indicators. The PIIs address a need for reliable, actionable evidence to support government stakeholders in their anti-corruption reform efforts.

With datasets downloadable for further research, these indicators benchmark country performance and provide an evidence-based approach to developing and implementing better integrity policies for better lives.