IACA warmly welcomed students from five continents and 21 countries to its campus this week for their first classes in the International Master in Anti-Corruption Compliance and Collective Action (IMACC) Programme and the Master in Anti-Corruption Studies (MACS). 

This is the seventh cohort to follow the Academy’s renowned MACS programme, developed mainly for public sector officials, and the second one for the master’s degree for business sector professionals. Students hail from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. The students’ professional backgrounds are as diverse as their countries of origin, with practitioners from public and private sectors, civil society, and international organizations.

Modules I covered “Concepts and Issues in Corruption” and “Introduction to Anti-Corruption Compliance and Collective Action Studies”, providing classes with an in-depth introduction to topics such as the politics of corruption and reform, organizational misbehaviour and integrity management, anthropological approach to study corruption, open government partnerships, the practitioner’s perspective of the fight against corruption, and research methods.

Expert lecturers from IACA’s frequent visiting faculty included Phil Mason, formerly Senior Anti-Corruption Adviser at the UK Department for International Development (DFID), Alexandra Malina Manea, Counsel, Office of Suspension and Debarment, the World Bank, Drago Kos, Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, Jeroen Maesschalck of the Leuven Institute of Criminology at KU Leuven, Dominique Abrokwa, partner in Pohlmann & Company law firm, Davide Torsello, Professor of Anthropology and Organizational Behavior at the Central European University, and Ina Kubbe, Post-Doctoral Researcher, School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Both IACA master’s degrees are two-year, in-career programmes consisting of six to seven modules and a master’s thesis/final project, and are specifically designed for working professionals who remain fully employed while pursuing their degrees.

The programmes start in October every year and applications are accepted year-round. Read more about the IMACC and MACS here.