Mihály Fazekas is an associate professor at the Central European University, Department of Public Policy, with a focus on using Big Data methods to understand the quality of government globally. He is also the scientific director of an innovative think tank, the Government Transparency Institute (GTI). He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he pioneered Big Data methods to measure and understand high-level corruption in Central and Eastern Europe.

His research and policy interests revolve around corruption, favouritism, private sector collusion, and government spending efficiency. Methodologically, he has experience in both quantitative and qualitative methods in diverse fields such as public policy, economics, and political science. He worked at the University of Cambridge as the scientific coordinator of the Horizon 2020-funded project DIGIWHIST ('the Digital Whistleblower’), which used a Big Data approach to measuring corruption risks, administrative capacity, and transparency in public procurement in 33 European countries. While at University College London, he served as a co-principal investigator on a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)-funded research project looking at anti-corruption in development aid funded procurement.

He regularly advises the European Commission, Council of Europe, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank, and a range of national governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across the globe. He led a team from FCDO UK, GTI, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which won first prize at the IMF Anti-Corruption Challenge for measuring corruption and its costs globally.