Impact case study database

Professor Heywood’s work [1-6] has significantly contributed to shaping the international agenda of current policy debates about how we should understand and combat corruption. Corruption carries a very significant cost, not just in financial terms (around 5% of global GDP according to some estimates) but also in terms of a loss of trust between citizens and institutions – both in the public and private sector. The failure of concerted anti-corruption efforts over recent decades to have a significant impact is held to have contributed to the rise of anti-system politics across the globe, posing real challenges to systems of governance and accountability. The need to address corruption effectively is therefore ever more urgent.

Heywood’s pathway to impact has been explicitly to move from detailed analytic research towards close engagement with policy-makers and practitioners in order to influence their approach. The Head of the UK Government Joint Anti-Corruption Unit (JACU) confirms that ‘ Heywood has truly been a leading player in connecting policy-makers and academics working on corruption and anti-corruption’ [a]; the Lead Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank states ‘ Heywood is indeed one of the very few scholars in the field of corruption research who strives to make his research relevant for us working in the policy arena’ [b].  Heywood’s policy focus has been reflected, for instance, in his selection to lead a multi-million-pound DFID [FCDO] programme designed to generate practical anti-corruption evidence and his appointment to the Board of Trustees of Transparency International’s UK chapter (TI-UK) where he chairs the Advocacy and Research Committee; further examples include his nomination to the Transparency Interational International Council, and his involvement in an innovative web-based initiative, CurbingCorruption.com, aimed directly at government officials tasked with tackling corruption.

In regard to his work on measurement [1,2] of corruption as well as its scale and focus [3,4], Heywood has contributed to the design of government policy both nationally and internationally.  Following the UK Anti-Corruption Summit of May 2016, he has been a strategic adviser to both JACU and DFID [now FCDO] in the UK, influential in the development of their respective anti-corruption strategies: ‘ Heywood has played an important role in advising the UK government (…) in designing its strategy’ [a]; ‘ Heywood’s knowledge, and framing of it for DFID (…) have been instrumental (…) at both the academic level and the policy influencing level. It is very likely his contribution will be informing DFID’s work on anti-corruption for some time to come’ [c].  These governmental strategies have incorporated key aspects of his work [1-4], including the need to differentiate more carefully between particular forms of corruption and to develop more targeted responses: ‘ His insights on the conceptualisation of corruption, and refreshing way of looking at the field, was particularly useful to our [DFID] team to shift away from narrowly orthodox ways’ [c] ‘ Heywood was particularly helpful in guiding our thinking around the definitions of corruption and our way of conceptualising the problem’ [a]. These are reflected in the UK Government’s first ever ‘Anti-Corruption Strategy 2017-2022’ [i] and in the 2016 International Development Committee Report on ‘Tackling Corruption Overseas’, in which Heywood is extensively cited [f].

Of particular note is Heywood’s emphasis on sectoral specificity [3,4], which has contributed directly to the establishment of  CurbingCorruption.com, a new initiative designed explicitly to support public officials and politicians planning anti-corruption reforms [g]. Although so far in existence for just two years, the website now occupies top place of over 9,500,000 results returned when searching Google for ‘curb corruption’, ahead of both Transparency International and the World Bank. As the lead editor of this site, Heywood has helped design a pragmatic multi-stage approach for developing reform strategies in specific sectors that has attracted significant policy interest: ‘ Heywood’s work on corruption at the sectoral level, notably through the website curbingcorruption.com, has facilitated our coordination across projects and thematic areas in the World Bank. (…) We promoted it at the latest International Anti-Corruption Conference, the world’s premier global forum for bringing together heads of state, civil society and the private sector, organised in Copenhagen in October 2018’ [b]. The World Bank’s 2020 Global Report on The Fight Against Corruption explicitly adopts an emphasis on sector and function-specific interventions, marking a significant shift from its previous approach [j].

An influential three-part workshop series organised by Heywood on ‘Rethinking Corruption in the 21^st century’, hosted in London (July 2017), Washington DC (December 2017) and Accra (March 2019), brought together seventy-five leading policy-makers, practitioners and academics to address core issues, seeking to understand the shortcomings of past anti-corruption approaches and what can be done in the future [h].  The workshops attracted significant international interest and included participants from government agencies (UK, Germany, Australia, Norway), international bodies (World Bank, UNDP, Inter-American Development Bank), and NGOs (Transparency International, Partnership for Transparency Fund, Global Integrity, Oxfam).  They were described by JACU as ‘ a fantastic opportunity (…) to stimulate and challenge my views on corruption and (…) to be put in touch with stakeholders’ [a].  Emerging from the workshops was a series of co-produced concrete policy proposals, including on shifting policy attention to promoting integrity which has been increasingly embraced within global anti-corruption discourse, as well as proposed new frameworks to develop better strategy to inform reforms measures, understand the practical functions of corruption and to chart influence networks. These are available through the Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence website [k].

Heywood’s work on integrity management [5,6] has contributed directly to the anti-corruption agenda of the OECD. At its 2016 Integrity Forum his report [5] commissioned by The Netherlands government (in its capacity of EU Presidency) was launched and helped influence the development of the OECD’s 2017 Recommendation on Public Integrity [l]. The Deputy Head of the Public Sector Integrity Division at OECD notes that ‘ his (Heywood’s) recommendation to move our work away from compliance-based approaches to the broader integrity agenda contributed to inform the new objectives of the OECD in this policy field. His research (…) has contributed to promote integrity management as a new way of preventing corruption, challenging conventional views within the policy community’ [d]. The OECD integrity focus is directly cited in Peru’s sector-based anti-corruption strategy, 2018-21, and Heywood was invited to Lima in 2019 by the Peruvian National Statistics Agency to advise on measuring corruption risks.

The Executive Director of Transparency International-UK attests that ‘ Heywood has been instrumental in shaping many of TI’s internationally-recognised measurement and research tools. (…) His strong recommendation to move away from a solely national focus to look at what happens internationally is now fully reflected in the organisation’s strategy’ [e]. TI is renowned for its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the methodology of which has been significantly reworked in recent years following critiques by Heywood and others [1,2]; the Government Defence Industry Index, compiled by TI-UK, has been organised in bands rather than as a ranked list, in line with his recommendation. Heywood has also been involved in providing academic expert commentary on the ongoing refresh of Transparency InternationaI’s global strategy, due to be adopted in 2021. In recognition of his knowledge and expertise in the field of anti-corruption, the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI)* Secretariat invited Heywood in October 2020 to join its newly established International Council, comprising global experts to support the activities and objectives of the worldwide TI Movement.

In summary, Heywood’s research has had extensive reach and impact in shaping the understanding, approach and strategy towards tackling corruption within governments, as well as major international bodies and leading NGOs.

*TI was ranked 8^th worldwide amongst think tanks with the most significant impact on public policy in the  2018 Global Go To Think Tank Index, published by the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.