HANNOVER - EFSJ is organising a European Science Journalism Conference in Hannover, Germany. The event takes place on 14 and 15 October, alongside the annual WPK Wissenswerte conference on 15 and 16 October.
This is one of Europe’s key gatherings for science journalists, organised by the European Federation for Science Journalism (EFSJ). ECSJ 2026 is built around the theme “Science Journalism for a World in Crisis”, with a focus on trust and accountability, cross-border connections and communities, and new approaches to the craft of journalism.
Among many worthy speakers are 6 grantees of the Environmental Investigative Journalism grant programme of Journalismfund Europe.
They will take part in the following sessions:
14 October, 14:30–16:00 — “Shared Seas, Shared Stories”
The session brings together Anastasia Karadimitri (Greece), Franziska Grillmeier (Germany) and Barbara Celis (Spain), with Alec Saelens of Journalismfund Europe as moderator. Their work illustrates the growing importance of cross-border environmental reporting around Europe’s shared seas. Karadimitri is part of A Sea of Slime: The Toll of Mucilage in the Mediterranean, which investigates the continuing spread of marine mucilage across Türkiye, Greece and Italy. Grillmeier’s The Making of a Dying Sea examines the pressures facing the Baltic Sea, including climate change and eutrophication, while Celis worked on Mediterranean’s Hidden Forests Under Siege by Tourism, a cross-border investigation into the impact of tourism and anchoring on Posidonia oceanica seagrass.
15 October, 14:30–16:00 — “The Forever Pollution & Lobbying Project: How Collaboration between Journalists and Scientists turned Data into Impact” (joint WISSENSWERTE/ECSJ workshop)
José Miguel Calatayud and Gianluca Liva, moderated by Sarah Pilz, will unpack the collaborative methods behind the Forever Lobbying Project, one of Europe’s major investigations into PFAS, or “forever chemicals”. The project brought together 46 journalists in 16 countries and 28 media partners, working with academics and researchers to investigate the PFAS industry’s lobbying and disinformation efforts around the proposed EU restriction on these chemicals. Building on the earlier Forever Pollution Project, the team combined investigative journalism, data, FOI requests and scientific expertise, with 18 international academics and researchers contributing to an “expert-reviewed journalism” approach. The project also collected more than 14,000 previously unpublished PFAS-related documents and examined the potential cost of cleaning up PFAS pollution across Europe.
More info on: www.efsj.eu & https://wissenswerte.wpk.org/en/
