'Hiding in plain sight': new data and methods helping to illuminate illicit and informal flows

Workshop leaders:

• Dr Marianne L. Wade
• Professor Heather Marquette
• Professor Nikos Passas, Northeastern University, Institute of Advanced Studies Distinguished Visiting Fellow

The porous border between legal-illegal, formal-informal, licit-illicit, upperworld-underworld, is arguably one of the biggest challenges facing global development today and illicit trade poses a threat to developing countries’ ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and that both corruption and financial flows act as enablers underpinning criminal systems. This trade includes both illicit and licit goods, undermining states and markets, injecting criminality into both and reducing domestic revenue mobilization.

This workshop will bring together researchers from across the university to explore the knowledge we have and potential methodologies to improve this as well as to identify key points for the development of a multi-disciplinary research programme.