The Corruption Research Center Budapest was created in November 2013 in response to the growing need for independent research on corruption and quality of government in Hungary. Hence, the Center was established as a non-partisan research institute independent of governments, political parties or special interest groups. It is initially financed by the founders, but also from private donations and EU and government research funds. The aims of the Center are to systematically explore the causes, characteristics, and consequences of low quality of government, corruption, and regulatory failure using an inter-disciplinary approach. In addition, the Center also aims to help citizens to hold governments accountable through the use of robust evidence. Our unique research approach combines qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse micro-level actor behaviour and it generates novel hard data on the phenomena under scrutiny. Making research findings accessible for the wider public and developing effective policy solutions is integral to our work. The founders believe that it is only through understanding and precisely measuring government activities we can build good government.