DataharvestEIJC2020

The big challenge with an online conference is how to socialise! Can we have fun together online? Can we start cross-border colaborations like it has been done over the years at the Dataharvest conferences - or in the bars of Mechelen. We suggest the Dataharvest Thursday Bars - come help us set the agenda. We'll discuss how to do it and get ideas for the future Thursday bars!

Turning ideas for cross-border collaborations into actual investigations is both art and science, and it's a process we all can learn how to do better. In this session, we discuss how to develop ideas for possible collaborations (from stories already published at the national level to completely brand new ideas) and how to convert them into real cross-border investigations.

Since 2019, some European pension funds have been saying they are divesting from investment in fossil fuels. However, reality is often more complex than these announcements; and there are still quite a few other pension funds not saying anything about divesting their own investments. What does the data say? What were European pension funds investing in, and what are they doing now regarding the fossil fuel industry? We'll learn from reporting done at the national level and then brainstorm and discuss possible ways to collaborate across borders to investigate this issue.

No networking over sandwiches and coffee this year - but Dataharvest Digital still provides you with the space and the time to tell others about your projects and ideas for possible collaborations. In this lightning talk session, we'll hear from Priti Patnaik about her project "Geneva Health Files", from Daiva Repečkaitė about her project "Obesity as the 'slow epidemic'", and from Ruth Hokpins about how her own investigation into private security company G4S turned into a big cross-border collaboration covering 30 countries. Join us to learn more about those projects and to brainstorm ways to work together!

After Dataharvest 2019, Arena launched and has been coordinating the Arena Housing Project, an open collaborative network for journalists working on housing. Over a year later, and as Arena develops a Climate & Energy Network, what are the opportunities, challenges and lessons learnt from the Housing Project regarding topic-based open networks?

Several local projects are working on mapping empty homes in different European countries. Their methodologies differ and the data they are getting varies from one project to the other. Our challenge? Make sense of those different kinds of data and pave the way for those distinct projects to be part of a wider cross-border investigation.

No networking over sandwiches and coffee this year - but Dataharvest Digital still provides you with the space and the time to tell others about your projects and ideas for possible collaborations. In this lightning talk session, we'll hear from Ties Gijzel about his collaborative investigation into the biomass industry in Europe and how such cross-border teams can help cover national blind spots, from Daphné Dupont-Nivet about her transnational investigation into Shell's CO2 compensation scheme, and from Natalie Sablowski about N-OST's project idea "IJ meet IT" (investigative journalists meeting programmers). Join us to learn more about those projects and to brainstorm ways to work together!

The presence of the far right in the public conversation and in parliaments has been increasing in many countries around Europe. While there are differences in context and focus, there are also similarities and potential patterns to reveal the way the far right has become more prominent in the last years. In this session, we'll discuss the possibilities and challenges of investigating the rise of the far right across borders in Europe.

Cross-border collaborations bring together people from different countries and cultures, and from different journalistic traditions. And even though we all speak English as well as our mother tongue, we do it in different ways. All those differences and particularities may cause misunderstandings or even serious problems, but also funny situations. Let's finish this week by sharing those funny and awkward moments we have experienced in cross-border collaborations and what we learned from them.

We know there is structural racism. We know it is a serious problem. But how can journalists address structural problems? The purpose of this round table is to find good examples, address relevant questions and bring people together. Martin Modlinger from Germany will open by sharing the experience of his massive FOI project. He simply asked: We know structural racism is a serious problem, what does the national government, the provincial governments and the police do about it? It is a long term and slow project, it is investigative, and it can be replicated. Martin filed FOI requests with 570 authorities on various levels in Germany using the FOI platform Frag den Staat (Ask the State, www.fragdenstaat.de). By the time of writing this programme text, he the first answers are coming in. They stretch from answers in the style of "racism is forbidden, thus we have no statistics" to answers equalling structural racism with xenophobia. To open the session, Martin will explain which documents he expected and requested, his search terminology, strategy and first findings.

Investigating structural racism is likely to vary from country to country due to different history and legislation. Nevertheless we believe that collaboration makes sense and would like to invite to this round table people who are addressing the question in their respective countries. The purpose is to share methods, experiences and ideas and potentially to collaborate on research in the future. For this round table, we have invited journalists from all over Europe who want to connect to collaborate on this topic. The purpose is to inspire each other and make contacts.

We have established a forum thread if you want to link to interesting work or indeed interesting challenges to address https://discussion.dataharvest.eu/t/investigating-structural-racism/118