Recent publications
Our team's recent publications focus on protracted refugee situations, corruption prevention and the effectiveness of programming related to irregular migration. These include the below.
Community cohesion between Ukrainian refugees and host communities in Central Europe
In Central Europe, governments, non-governmental organisations, businesses, multilateral organisations, and ordinary citizens have provided substantial support to Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s 2022 invasion. However, as the war continues, the generosity shown to date might wane, partly due to the challenges host countries face, such as high inflation and stretched social services, as well as disinformation campaigns relating to refugees, including from Russia-aligned stakeholders. This report aims to help understand the factors that might undermine cohesion between Ukrainian refugees and host communities in the region in the medium term. It provides programmatic recommendations to local, national, and international stakeholders on what they could do to mitigate those factors. In addition, the report details the characteristics that have increased (or can increase) different Ukrainian refugees’ vulnerabilities to exploitation, discrimination, and ability to access necessary services, as well as incendiary and misleading discourses about Ukrainian refugees that have appeared and have the potential to be spread further.
Six reports were produced under the leadership of Dr Ingrida Kerusauskaite. These focus on the Central Europe region, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Stability, security and sustainable development
Dr Ingrida Kerusauskaite's book chapter discusses the economic crime-related security, stability and sustainable development issues, recommending areas of further research which would be of particular interest to both practitioners as well as the academic community. The proposed areas for additional research are focused on some of the largest security challenges we are faced with today. These include the economic crime-related repercussions of health crises, most recently Covid-19, conflicts and wars, environmental (in)security and ensuing irregular migration flows. The chapter highlights a proposed focus on prevention, from focusing on alternatives to crime, to understanding and working with social norms that influence the acceptance of and engagement in economic crime and enhancing our understand of what works in relation to values-based approaches to combatting economic crime. In addition, more research would be useful to outline the way politics continues to influence economic crime trends and controls.
Joining the dots between ESG and corruption
Corruption can undermine both the development impact and financial goals investors are attempting to achieve. The ESG world is moving fast; both interest in ESG and sustainability, as well as critiques of it, are on the rise. Impact investor and anti-corruption communities should collaborate more. The anti-corruption community can help investors achieve their development and financial goals, while the investor community can help to amplify the impact of integrity work as companies pay attention to what their investors say. What investors ask of their investee companies can have a real effect on how the companies behave. Read the full article here.