Simon Wörpel is an independent investigative data journalist, researcher and leak librarian.

In 2023, he founded investigativedata.io, an independent tech organization for investigative journalism. He specializes in documents processing, data engineering and data analysis for journalistic investigations. Simon works for different non-profit organizations, newspapers and media outlets in germany. There he advises and implements software tools for research teams to enable data mining, documents processing and data analysis to enable data-driven investigative journalism.  

From 2015 to 2019 he worked as a data journalist and newsroom developer at the german non-profit investigative newsroom CORRECTIV. There he built document databases and security infrastructure for collaborative cross-border investigations like “The CumEx Files” and “Grand Theft Europe”. Both of these projects involved dealing with highly sensitive material and orchestrating secure communication and data sharing between dozens of journalists from different countries.  

Simon originally attended journalism school and studied economics and politics in Cologne, Germany.

Photo by Ivo Mayr.

Simon Wörpel

Basic information

Name
Simon Wörpel
Title
Investigative journalist
Expertise
data journalism, data leaks
Country
Germany
City
Berlin

Supported projects

The Fossil Fuel Ties of Medical Research

  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Healthcare

BERLIN / LONDON - The team of journalists investigated the financial ties between the fossil fuel industry and medical research. The data analysis reveals over 180 medical articles published in the last six years acknowledging funding and 1000 featuring authors affiliated with fossil fuel companies.