Elizabeth David-Barrett

Professor Elizabeth David-Barrett is Professor of Governance and Integrity (Politics) at the School of Law, Politics and Sociology at the University of Sussex, where she joined in 2014. She serves as Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption (CSC), leading research, teaching, and policy impact activities. Previously, she spent four years at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Her educational background includes a DPhil in Politics from Oxford, an MA in Slavonic and East European Studies from the University of London, and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford. Prior to academia, she worked for think tanks including the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Centre for European Reform, political risk consultancy Oxford Analytica, and as a journalist in Croatia and Hungary for The Economist, Financial Times, BBC World Service, and Business Central Europe.

David-Barrett's research focuses on corruption and policy responses to corruption, with particular expertise in clientelism and favoritism in government contracting, corruption risks in aid spending, and anti-corruption regulation. She leads the Curbing Corruption in Procurement project, exploring how big data analytics can identify corruption risks in public procurement, which has informed World Bank approaches to risk management. Her work also examines international norm diffusion in anti-corruption, including 'hard law' like anti-bribery laws and 'soft law' private regulation.

Her recent publications demonstrate a clear trajectory toward analyzing state capture as a systemic threat to democracy, with increasing focus on the economic consequences of corruption, measurement methodologies for grand corruption, and context-specific definitions of corruption. Her work bridges academic research with practical policy applications, particularly in public procurement analytics and anti-corruption tool development.

• Chair of the first ever Academic Roundtable of the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (2020)
• Head of the Global Programme on Measuring Corruption at the International Anti-Corruption Academy, Vienna (2022-23)
• Chair of the Board of Spotlight on Corruption (2019-22)
• Trustee of Transparency International UK (2024)
• Specialist Adviser to the UK House of Commons Standards Committee

David-Barrett has successfully secured substantial research funding from FCDO, DFID, British Academy, and other organizations, totaling millions of pounds for corruption research. She has advised the UK Department for International Development on its International Anti-Corruption programme and the UK Cabinet Office on the 2017-22 National Anti-Corruption Strategy. Her engagement extends globally through organizing 'hackathons' in Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania with civil society activists on data analysis for identifying grand corruption. She also co-hosts the Kickback the Global Anticorruption Podcast and has provided expert testimony to parliamentary select committees.