Understanding how companies are owned, controlled and managed is crucial for investigations. To reveal the real human owners with the right to share in a company’s income or assets, or the ability to control its activities, you need beneficial ownership data. Open Ownership drives the global shift towards beneficial ownership transparency and in this session we will share where to find and make use of up-to-date data on company ownership. We will also explain how journalists can find such information in unstructured data in a range of places.
As global tensions continue to rise amid shifting security dynamics, the need for transparent, reliable, and impartial data has never been greater. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has been at the forefront of independent research on conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament since its founding in 1966. Its comprehensive datasets serve as essential tools for policymakers, researchers, and analysts seeking to understand military spending patterns, arms industry developments, and their broader geopolitical implications. In this session, SIPRI's researcher will share the methodology, scope, and significance of SIPRI's data on Military Expenditure and Arms Production. Understanding the databases reveals trends and stories within two of the most topical subjects of the past years.
The Investigative Commons is a collaboratively maintained repository of datasets and document archives useful for investigative reporting to ensure long-term access to evidence.
Currently, datasets (evidence) for investigative journalism are maintained by several media organizations and journalism networks; because of changing priorities of newsrooms and the specific funding situation of investigative journalism these cannot be considered reliable long-term partners for accessing the data . Further more we do not believe organizations involved in investigative research and publishing stories are the ones to take on the burden of providing access to evidence data long term (though it’s appreciated if they can do that for some time).
We want to launch this new project by showing the various available datasets and how everyone can use them. We will also explain how to contribute to this open, community-driven project, and discuss further plans and ideas from the community.
