Supported projects

Climate change could leave you homeless overnight – right here, in Europe. Flash floods, mudslides and wildfires triggered by heatwaves are among the extreme weather events becoming increasingly common thanks to our changing climate.

MALTA - The model for the privatisation of Malta’s public hospitals negotiated by now disgraced Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, with the approval of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, was exported to Balkan States with weak democratic structures that enable large-scale corruption.

GEORGIA - Each year in December, 80 million Christmas trees are sold across Europe. The majority of these, 45 million, are Nordmann firs who have their origins in the Caucasus region. 80 % of the Nordmann trees cultivated in Europe come from seeds harvested in Western Georgia.  

KIEV - In the course of the moratorium on forest felling in Ukraine, bypassing not only national legislation but also EU regulations and certifications, Ukrainian timber is cut and harvested at such a rate that over four years its exports to the EU countries increased by 75%, exceeding the mark in a billion Euro in 2017.

DILOVASI - The Toxic Valley project looks into the environmental consequences of industrialisation in Turkey, and reveals a pattern of chemical dumping and polluting that has led to a widespread health crisis in the Kocaeli region, the most heavily industrialised area of the country.

BUCHAREST - The need of Italian mafia networks to carry out vast money-laundering operations took them to Romania and Bulgaria. They set up companies that not only succeeded in flying under the radar but also won government contracts. 

PTOLEMAIDA - In Greece, coal is considered "national fuel" and policymakers have always treated it as such. The future of the coal industry, however, is not taken for granted. The price of coal has increased, the industry is operating against EU's environmental and economic policies and its proponents and opponents are more than ever at odds. 

BERLIN - Are online dating applications designed to make us react in a certain way? Why do men do not attract enough attention and women increasingly receive insults and inappropriate messages? Our grantees, Judith Duportail and Nicolas Kayser-Bril, investigated how the architecture of a dating application influences how users behave. 

BIHAC - Western Bosnia and Herzegovina is a bottleneck for migrants and refugees who are fleeing across the Balkans. Many of them are caught en route to Northern or Western Europe on Slovenian territory, from where they are being systematically handed over to Croatian authorities in the last year. In Croatia, they are often exposed to police violence. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they finally end up, they are condemned to an interminable wait.

ZAGREB - Although women have the legal right to abortion across the vast majority of countries in Europe, women in some east European countries are finding it tougher to terminate pregnancies. Our grantees looked into examples of Croatia, Romania, and Poland.