"Despite" and "in spite of" are followed by nouns or gerunds. By the way, note that we can't use the word "behind" in the way that you used it in your question. One word can never be behind another one - this makes no sense in English. A word which follows another word in a sentence is "after" it, not "behind" it. I've noticed a number of Chinese speakers making this mistake, and wonder if this is because of first-language interference.

Gerunds or nouns follow these expressions.