Journalism Science Alliance awards €950,000 to 25 investigations backed by science

The projects address some of Europe's most pressing public-interest questions: from AI, climate change and pollution, to public health, housing, labour, migration, democracy and organised crime - through partnerships between newsrooms and research institutions.

Each funded project brings together a newsroom and a scientific research institution, combining investigative reporting with academic expertise, scientific methods and data analysis. Over the next eight months, the teams will work together to produce investigations that show how collaboration between journalism and science can deliver deeper public-interest reporting.

The selected investigations

Climate & environment

Climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and environmental governance are among Europe's defining challenges. These investigations combine scientific expertise and public-interest reporting to examine their causes, impacts and the decisions shaping our future.

Ekonews / Masaryk University – Hazardous Beauty: Pesticides in Cut Flowers (€50,000)

A collaborative project by Ekonews and the RECETOX research centre at Masaryk University investigating the largely overlooked issue of pesticide residues in cut flowers sold on the Czech market. 

Marea Media APS / Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro – Talking Trees: Uncovering Industrial Impact through Plant Ecophysiology (€20,000)

Combining plant biosensing, data science, and investigative journalism, the project will reveal how airborne pollutants from oil extraction alter tree physiology, producing critical new evidence that fills a gap deliberately maintained by Eni's corporate influence. 

Edicions Digitals de Premsa Local / Universitat de Barcelona – Tracking the Forest's Silent Crisis (€20,000)

This project will investigate the forest mortality crisis affecting Catalonia's forests over the past 20 years, quantifying for the first time the exact extent of tree death and degradation caused by climate change across the entire region. 

AFP / Masaryk University (RECETOX) – The Future of PFAS Pollution (€50,000)

The project investigates pollution from PFAS, the so-called "forever chemicals," substances that persist in the environment for decades, accumulate in water and soil, and are associated with serious health effects. 

atlatszo.hu / ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies – Battery Nation: Powering Europe, Charged with Hidden Costs (€50,000)

This project will investigate the rapid expansion of Hungary’s battery industry and its environmental, regulatory and social consequences within the wider European energy transition.

Coöperatie SPIT U.A. / Tilburg University – The Subsidy Trawl. How Public Money Flows to Europe's Industrial Fishing Giants (€20,000)

This project investigates how public money flows to the Dutch fishing industry, and whether it achieves its stated goals of food security and sustainability.

Press One / University of Bucharest (CISA) – The Industry That Brings the Floods (€20,000)

A team of investigative journalists and hydrologists will investigate how a poorly regulated industry has been quietly reshaping Romania’s rivers, amplifying flood risks for years and leaving entire communities at risk. The project aims to find out why the authorities are failing to prevent and what the social and economic costs are.

CLIMÁTICA / Estación Biológica de Doñana (CSIC) – UNVEEL. Unveiling Social and Economic Forces Hindering the Protection of the Critically Endangered European Eel (€20,000)

The UNVEEL project investigates the systemic social, economic, and political forces hindering the recovery of the critically endangered European eel. By examining how the species is caught, commercialised, and consumed across Europe, the investigation aims to expose the blurred lines between legal exploitation pathways and criminal smuggling networks, as well as the corporate lobbying paralysing vital conservation policies.

Health & Science

From maternal mental health to medical regulation and nicotine products, these investigations explore how evidence-based journalism can improve understanding of the systems that affect people's health and wellbeing.

OKO.press / University of Gdańsk – Before the Fall: Maternal Mental Health and Suicide in Poland (€20,000)

This investigation asks a fundamental public-health question: why do maternal mental-health crises remain largely invisible in healthcare systems that otherwise place enormous social value on motherhood?

Blast! / UiT The Arctic University of Norway – Investigating Regulatory Failures in Medical Research to Improve Patient Safety and Healthcare Across Europe (€20,000)

Clinical trials investigate whether medicines are safe and effective for use. We aim to determine what the 30 European national medicines agencies are doing to ensure that the law is followed and patient safety is safeguarded. 

Scienza in rete / Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS – NoPouch: Preventing the Expansion of Nicotine Pouches in Italy (€50,000)

Nicotine is no longer consumed exclusively through cigarette smoking: new marketing strategies are focusing on innovative products that appeal to very young people and have the potential to expand the market. What do these pouches actually contain? How much nicotine do they release? Are the labels on the packaging reliable? Is the legal age limit of 18 being respected? 

Ringier Axel Springer Polska / Jagiellonian University Medical College – Trapped in Manipulation: How Fake News and Pseudo-medical Therapies Destroy Polish Seniors' Health (€50,000)

The project addresses the critical intersection of public health, digital exclusion, and disinformation targeting one of society's most vulnerable groups: Polish seniors. It will focus on the proliferation of "pseudo-medical" therapies (e.g., unauthorised supplements, "miracle" devices) that lead seniors to abandon conventional, evidence-based treatments for chronic diseases.

Democracy & Accountability

Who holds power, how public money is spent, and how institutions shape people's lives are at the heart of these investigations. Together, they strengthen transparency and democratic accountability across Europe.

A Mensagem d'A Brasileira / Instituto de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território – Who Owns Lisbon? (€50,000)

Focusing on central Lisbon, the investigation aims to uncover the systematic reality of property ownership structures—such as speculative investment, corporate landlords, short-term rental concentration, and the fate of former public assets. 

Fundația9 / Centrul pentru Studiul Comparat al Migrației – Siphoned Away: How Migration Money Escapes Those Who Need It (€50,000)

The investigation will examine how EU funds earmarked for migrant “integration” and “protection” in Romania are spent, and why they fail to translate into real support for non‑EU workers. 

GALKA.IF.UA / Open Space Works Ukraine– Behind the Aid: How Accountable Are EU Fund Operators in Ukraine? (€50,000)

Behind the Aid investigates how accountability works and where it breaks down in the system that delivers EU assistance to Ukraine. Journalists from the Ukrainian media outlet Galka.if.ua and researchers from Open Space Works Ukraine will map the operators managing EU-funded technical assistance —

multilateral organisations, international NGOs, programmes, and consulting firms — and compare how they disclose spending, run tenders and select consultants, and control conflicts of interest.

Delfi Meedia AS / Stockholm School of Economics in Riga – The Rail Baltic Billions (€50,000)

This project will investigate the implementation of Rail Baltica across Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, with a focus on understanding why outcomes differ significantly between the three countries. 

Samizdat & Czech Radio Data Team / Masaryk University – Ties of Silence (€20,000)

Ties of Silence investigates the networks behind climate-transition funding in Czechia. Combining investigative journalism with cutting-edge social science, the project explores how relationships among policymakers, public institutions, companies, and interest groups shape the allocation of resources intended to support decarbonization. 

Público / ISCSP – The Genealogy of Power (€20,000)

Público journalists and social science researchers from ISCSP-IUL will work together on tracing the family trees of key office holders in every Portuguese government since 1926.

168 Chasa Ltd / University of National and World Economy – The Euro Surcharge (€50,000)

The investigation aims to determine whether, following Bulgaria's accession to the Eurozone on 1 January 2026, market operators exploited the currency transition to impose covert price increases at consumers' expense — mirroring documented patterns in Slovakia and Estonia.

Artificial intelligence and digital technologies are transforming the way we work, govern and access information. These projects investigate both the opportunities and the hidden costs of Europe's technological transition.

Ringier Slovakia Media / Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies – Slaves of the Algorithm (€50,000)

The project will investigate how automated decision-making and digital management tools affect working conditions, while also tracking broader technological shifts that are reshaping entry-level career pipelines.

Maldita.es / University of Jaén – Grok, Is This True? How AI Fact-checkers Are Reshaping Truth—and Spreading Misinformation—in Real Time (€50,000)

This project examines the risks of using AI chatbots—particularly Grok on X—as real-time fact-checking tools in social media environments, where they may generate or amplify misinformation through confident but inaccurate verification responses. 

Investigate Europe / University of Bonn (IWE) – The Afterlife of AI: The Hidden E-waste Crisis Behind Europe's AI Boom (€50,000)

This cross-border investigation will look into an overlooked environmental cost of Europe's rapid build-out of AI infrastructure. While public debate has focused on the energy and water that AI consumes, this project turns to a later, largely unexamined stage in the lifecycle of that infrastructure, combining original scientific analysis with on-the-ground reporting across several European countries.

Il Sole 24 ORE / Politecnico di Milano – From Cloud to Ground: The Impact of Data Centres in Northern Italy (€50,000)

This investigative journalism initiative focused on the rapid development of data centres in Italy, with particular attention to Lombardy and the Milan metropolitan area. 

Rights & Society

Democratic societies depend on reliable evidence to understand injustice, protect fundamental rights and strengthen social cohesion. These investigations shed light on issues that too often remain hidden.

Correctiv / Universität Salzburg – Zero Record: The Systematic Erasure of Child Abuse and Gender-based Violence Statistics from Turkish Digital Media (€50,000)

“Zero Record” is a transnational investigative journalism and science project examining how Türkiye systematically erases statistical data on femicide, child sexual abuse, and gender-based violence from its digital media landscape. 

Krautreporter / Universität Kassel – Evidence for Action: From Fragmented Records to Germany's First Local Extremism Map (€20,000)

While Germany has systematically recorded politically motivated far‑right crime since 2001, most data are only published in aggregated form at national or state level. Detailed local information is only made available scattered across parliamentary inquiries and civil‑society monitoring projects, fragmented, inconsistent, and not readily usable. We aim to close this gap. By systematically collecting, harmonising, and analysing these fragmented sources, we will build the first comparable municipality‑level dataset on far‑right crime in Germany.

Main image: Fieldwork for "Slovenia's Murky Waters", a Journalism & Science Alliance-funded investigation bringing together Strašno hudi and the National Institute of Biology (NIB) to investigate cyanobacterial blooms and water safety in Slovenia.