Established as a policy research institute in 1996, the Romanian Academic Society (SAR) is the oldest active think-tank in Romania, contributing to good governance and development through policy research and advocacy. Since its inception, SAR has been working with a vast network of academic institutions, policy-makers, business and civil society peers to generate the evidence base for measuring, understanding and tackling good governance and corruption and to translate these findings into practical policy action. SAR aims to contribute to (re)building the fields of applied social sciences and public policy in Romania and South-Eastern Europe; train independent experts in public affairs in order to monitor and advise the government; formulate professional policy recommendations and thus raise the quality of public debate.
Role in the project
SAR leads WP9 focused on regulatory and enforcement gaps in preventive anticorruption policies, meaning we will assess whether regulations are enforced and produce their presumed impact on corruption practices. We will update an interactive database of legal norms evaluating efforts to enhance the transparency of public administration and the accountability of public officials and, as part of WP8, extend it with specific criminal law. We will also measure de jure and de facto transparency for EU-27 and accession countries and test its effectiveness as an anticorruption tool (WP5). SAR is involved in developing the datahub and webtools that will support the activity of the consortium (WP10).