Global award for university academic
A CARDIFF UNIVERSITY academic has won a prestigious international award for his anti-corruption research.
Professor Michael Levi was announced as the winner of the Rule of Law Committee/UN Office of Drugs and Crime Research and Education prize.
Since the 1970s, Professor Levi, pictured, has been at the forefront of academic and policy developments in corruption, white-collar and other “organised” crimes and the ways they interact with globalisation and with the emerging frameworks of transnational policing and regulation.
He has been regularly consulted by the UK, EU and other governments such as Australia, to assist them in thinking about how best to manage their financial and organised crime problems.
At a European level, he was the only UK academic appointed to the EU Group of Experts on Corruption and has been a senior adviser in networks to advise EU governments and sectors on anticorruption efforts.
His nomination letter noted: “In a world of busy and sometimes transient stakeholder representatives having to deal with complex problems often afresh, Professor Levi’s research offers a bulwark against over-hyped claims both about levels of harm and about likely effectiveness of interventions.
“His work highlights the need for a more subtle public understanding of the need for both preventative and criminal justice measures in addressing less visible harms.”
Professor Levi, based at the university’s School of Social Sciences, said: “It is a terrific honour to receive this global recognition of the quality of my research, all of which has been conducted at Cardiff over the last 45 years.
“Like other crimes, corruption varies in its extent and harmfulness and in the ways we react towards it. Many, though certainly not all, of the funds find their way to expensive homes, car dealerships and businesses in our countries, using our professional and financial institutions.”
Last year, Professor Levi received lifetime awards from the American Society of Criminology, the British Society of Criminology and the first UK Lifetime Tackling Economic Crime Award.