Dataharvest 2025 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

In recent years, cross-border investigative projects have increasingly seen scientists and scholars not just as interviewees but as active collaborators throughout the investigative process. Such collaborations, while powerful, require careful design from the start. For example, scientists and journalists often have diverging agendas, timelines, and constraints. There is an inherent imbalance between scientific expertise and the ability of journalists to critically evaluate the validity of a specific scientific approach, leaving journalists reliant on scientists' judgment and at risk of losing control over the direction of the investigation. To address these and other challenges there is a need for structured guidelines, recommendations, and potentially a code of conduct to ensure independence, equity, and effective use of resources. In this networking session, the participants will discuss what those guidelines might look like and co-create a practical blueprint for fostering respectful and productive collaborations between journalists and scholars. The session's outcome will be a co-created roadmap of suggestions, insights, and practical recommendations.

Cross-border collaborative investigations are now an established practice in journalism, and the role of coordinator is gaining a clearer definition. Yes, many questions about the coordinator's role and work remain open, as each investigation is different and presents different challenges. While some organisations specialise in hosting and coordinating collaborative projects, there are also many cross-border investigations coordinated by individual journalists in an ad-hoc manner. In this session we'd like to consider the possibility of developing a cross-border editorial framework and mindset that would help us decide which topics to investigate from the beginning of a collaboration. We will look at ideas on how to best manage diverse, cross-border teams who have varying cultural and journalistic backgrounds; how to work remotely across different time zones with freelancers and staffers, newcomers and veterans, data journalists and writers. When it comes to publishing partners, how do you navigate the varying requirements of legacy media and independent newsrooms? Whether you have experience coordinating cross-border investigations or you'd like to get some experience in the field - join the discussion!

Back by popular demand (yes, really!) The OSINT treasure hunt gives Dataharvesters a chance to have some fun, test their OSINT skills and lateral thinking, and get some fresh air on the streets of Mechelen. Either come as a team (3 is a good number) or find other team members at the beginning of the session.

In this session, we will share our best practices on helping participants in our courses to embrace data journalism. We'll present the results of the Crossborder Journalism Campus project, where two cohorts of 75 students from three journalism education institutions in Germany, France and Sweden collaborated on a European topic. We will also share examples of exercises, workshops, and assignments that data educators might use. The session is for practice-oriented journalism educators who want to share tips and be inspired by each other.

The goal of this informal get-together is to bring together journalists using access to documents procedures within European Institutions and national countries. It is the first (in person) meeting of the informal network of journalist using access to documents procedures, launched at last year's Dataharvest conference, but it is also open to all the journalists and researchers who are knowledgeable about the right to information & getting documents in different (European) countries. During the meeting, we’ll exchange various tips and best practices, and if there is interest, try to create, together, a knowledge repository that would identify and compile useful strategies, tactics, and sources for obtaining documents in different Eu Member States.

Are you working on topics of algorithmic accountability? Join this meeting of AI "practitioners” to share tips and ideas from your investigations, discuss common challenges and obstacles, share lessons learned and good practices, and get peer support. (A more detailed description to follow)

Come and say farewell! We'll keep it short and sweet!