ACTLAS

ACTLAS is an online atlas that maps actions for transparency, integrity and anti-corruption. It brings together public information on these efforts, which is often scattered or difficult to find. Created by the EU funded RESPOND (Rescuing Democracy from Political Corruption in Digital Societies), the atlas details the specific actions undertaken and identifies the types of influence and/or types of corruption targeted by different organisations and initiatives.

ACTLAS is intended for anyone seeking focused information on these types of actions. It is built using only public online sources, and its interactive platform makes it easy to find, explore and compare this information.

As a living resource, ACTLAS can be updated at any time. New initiatives can be added by completing the “Submit an Initiative” form. If you or your organisation is involved in an initiative committed to transparency, accountability, integrity, and anti-corruption, we encourage you to join ACTLAS!

If you are already part of ACTLAS and would like to update or revise your organisation’s or initiative’s information, please complete the “Update Information” form.

Please contact us at info@eu-respond.eu if you have any questions or if your organisation or initiative prefers to be removed from ACTLAS.

In its initial phase, ACTLAS has focused on organisations and initiatives operating in countries where the RESPOND research project has been conducting in-depth qualitative research—namely Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Hungary, and Serbia—as well as at the European Union level.

ACTLAS aims to expand its geographical scope over time, with the support of those engaged in researching and promoting transparency, accountability, integrity, and anti-corruption efforts.

The initial set of initiatives and organisations was identified through desk research conducted by a team of experienced researchers. Cases were selected if their activities and projects explicitly addressed at least one of the five forms of influence examined by RESPOND: media influence, political finance, lobbying, personal connections, and revolving doors, with particular attention to the use of digital technologies, or due to their relevance in fighting corruption and promoting integrity and transparency in the country of interest.

ACTLAS’ primary focus has been on civil society initiatives and bottom-up organisations. However, ACTLAS is open to expanding coverage to include more governmental and mixed civil society–government efforts with the support of its users.

ACTLAS, therefore, has not catalogued every single initiative within a given country or covering the EU institutions, but rather included as many relevant cases for RESPOND as the research team was able to identify.

The database remains open to updates, including the addition of new organisations and initiatives. Our goal is to offer an open repository that can be useful for those looking for information on these types of initiatives.

ACTLAS is a deliverable of RESPOND (Rescuing Democracy from Political Corruption in Digital Societies), a research project funded by the European Union and led by the University of Bologna (Italy), in collaboration with a consortium of 17 partners that started in 2024 and will end in 2029.

RESPOND’s main goal is to understand political corruption in the digital age, across the EU and neighbouring countries, focusing on five forms of influence – political finance, lobbying, revolving doors, political connections, and media influence. It also considers public and elite perceptions of political corruption and forms of influence, as well as responses from civil society.

RESPOND also analyses how digital technologies can support transparency and integrity, mapping different types of technology-based initiatives in the process. ACTLAS serves this purpose.

ACTLAS was developed by NET7 and the University of Bologna, with the contributions of researchers involved in the research teams from the following partners of the RESPOND consortium: University of Amsterdam, IGA – Institute for Global Analytics, and ACREC – Anti-Corruption Research and Education Centre.

Two other partners, King’s College London and Libera, gave suggestions and feedback on the ongoing work for ACTLAS design and development.

ACTLAS was initially built using data that was mainly available online and collected by researchers between May 2024 and February 2026. This data was sometimes complemented by interviews conducted with experts, activists, journalists, tech developers, and representatives of civil society organisations.

Although it is grounded in academic research, ACTLAS has been designed as a user-friendly online resource for a broad audience, and it can be updated anytime.

To design ACTLAS, the RESPOND team contacted a total of 26 individuals representing different potential users, of whom 19 responded.

They were asked to complete the following statement: “As a [chosen category of potential user—international organization representative, researcher, anti-corruption activist, concerned citizen, civil servant, journalist, or tech developer], when thinking about an online atlas of anti-corruption, pro-transparency, and pro-integrity initiatives, I would want/need/expect it to do ‘Y’ so that I would be able to do ‘Z’.”

The information made available through ACTLAS addresses the most frequently expressed expectations and requests identified through these responses.

Drawing on them, we decided to include in ACTLAS structured information on each initiative, including the initiative’s name (e.g. specific project, platform, or app); the managing organisation (if different from the initiative); the year it started (if available) and the decade it was created in; website and social media links (if available); the city and country where it is headquartered (although some initiatives are entirely online and have no physical address); a brief case description; and a contact email address (if available).

For each case, ACTLAS also records the type of organisation, the main types of action they engage in, and the forms of influence and/or forms of corruption these initiatives fight.

The date on which the ACTLAS data was collected is also included for each entry, so that users know when the data was last updated.

For detailed information on the codes used in ACTLAS to classify the:
1) targeted forms of influence;
2) targeted forms of corruption and associated actions;
3) type of organisation; and
4) main type of action(s),
please check our CODEBOOK file.