After a year of postponement, the 7th edition of the GCTR, organised by Copenhagen Business School, takes place from 18-20 May under the banner “Rethinking Transparency: Challenging Ideals and Embracing Paradoxes”.
After the corona pandemic forced the organising committee of the 7th GCTR to postpone the event last May following an unexpected late outburst of the virus during the spring of that year, the situation has now improved to the extent that the conference can safely go ahead.
Between 18 and 20 May, some 83 participants from across the world will see some 54 papers presented across 15 sessions. The sessions cover a diversity of transparency-related themes, including climate governance, FOI, digitalisation, and rankings. Due to the research tradition at CBS, the conference also presents a strong component of sociological research and communication studies, which manifests itself both through this year’s theme, and through panels dedicated to Critical Transparency Studies and the management of visibility.
The conference also sees a substream of EU-related papers. Firstly, through a panel on Open Government, chaired by Maarten Hillebrandt (yours truly, editor of OGEU blog), as well as in another session. EU-related papers cover the subject of Council Presidency sponsorship (Brandsma), trilogue legislative negotiations (Hoppe), and the role of the European Ombudsman (King).
The full programme, as well as further information on the conference, can be found here.
The Global Conference on Transparency Research brings together researchers and practitioners from various fields and disciplines focussed on policies related to transparency, disclosure, and openness. The conference is managed by a Standing Executive Committee currently comprising academics from universities in the United States and Europe. The conference normally takes place every 1-2 years. The first edition was held at Rutgers University, Newark (2011), followed by the Utrecht School of Governance (2012), HEC Paris (2013), USI, Lugano (2015), the University of Limerick (2017), and FGV, Rio de Janeiro (2019).
On various ocassions, EU transparency played a special role at the GCTR, with a special discussion session with the European Ombudsman for young scholars in Utrecht (2012), a panel discussion on the state of EU transparency in Paris (2013), and dedicated EU panels at different editions.
