The FALCON project (Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks)

The FALCON project (Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks) is a three-year (2023-2026) interdisciplinary research project funded under Horizon 2023 with 4.7 million Euros budget.

FALCON aims to counter the increasing complexity of corruption activities by supporting the implementation, updating and management of a corruption intelligence framework. FALCON’s key concept is the so-called Corruption Intelligence Pictures or CIPs, which will provide a holistic view of specific areas of corruption. There are four corruption phenomena addressed by FALCON as pilot cases: public procurement fraud, circumvention of sanctions against oligarchs and kleptocrats, corruption schemes linked to smuggling at border crossings, and conflicts of interest of politically exposed persons.

FALCON will develop and validate a range of indicators of corruption phenomena that can be used to inform policy decisions and law enforcement activities. Furthermore, data analysis tools and applications will be designed, implemented, and integrated to support the management of the entire lifecycle of the intelligence framework. Together, this will enable comprehensive corruption risk assessment, informed policy formulation, and improved anti-corruption enforcement.

The QoG Institue’s team will contribute to the research on mapping trends and modi operandi of corrupt activities in public procurement, focusing on corruption in mature welfare states, like Sweden. The consortium involves 25 partner organizations from 15 countries, including research centres and universities, technology and data analytics companies, police forces and anti-corruption authorities from several European countries.