Supported projects

GOMA – Romanian, Moldovan, and French security contractors deployed as instructors for the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s army in Goma, violated international law, faked their numbers and lacked military training.

AUSTIN - When a Belgian filmmaker moves to Texas and becomes a mother, she is confronted with a reality barely comprehensible in Europe: preschoolers trained to keep quiet in a dark closet, schools deploying armed teachers and children crawling behind their school desks with an escape plan in mind.

BRUSSELS - One in five Belgian women decides to terminate her pregnancy. When terminating a pregnancy is seen as an act of care, new conversations can begin. Care for yourself, care for a partner or care for future choices. 

ANTWERP - Take a morning-after pill every day for two years. That was long the doctor's advice to girls who were 'too big'. The side effects, such as reduced fertility, were hardly taken seriously.

GENOA - This investigative project uncovers the various factors that lead to increasing numbers of inmates taking their own lives by systematically exploring how different prison environments operate.

CAIRO - Cairo Encounters follows the lives of four Western European women who have emigrated to Cairo for love. The documentary explores the impact of their life choices on their Western identities and highlights their interactions with Egyptian society.

OXKUTZCAB - An estimated five million elderly parents in Mexico have been separated from their undocumented children living in the US for decades due to strict border policies, with little hope of being reunited.

ROTTERDAM - In the late 1980s, an existing plans to convert Rotterdam The Hague Airport into a residential area was already underway. A team of investigative journalists aims to find out how closing down airports within close proximity to a city delivers a higher quality of life to the residents of ...

VALENCIA - In recent years, several European countries have faced devastating floods, sparking discussions on how to mitigate or prevent such disasters. In Spain, the tragedy in Valencia in October 2024 has led to the exploration of solutions like early warning systems, architectural adaptations ...

MYANMAR – In Southeast Asia, entire cities devoted to online fraud are emerging along the borders of Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. While this phenomenon is relatively well-known in China and the United States, it remains largely unrecognised in Europe. 

BAHIA – This cross-border investigation analysed how wind parks owned by Enel, the major Italian energy company, appear to be linked to green grabbing in Brazil.

SIFNOS/AEOLIAN – In Italy and Greece, the number of tourists on the islands in southern Mediterranean is reaching unprecedented levels, while residents and farmers are experiencing a water shortage. This investigation explores the situation on Sifnos and the Aeolian archipelago, to understand how ...

LITOMYSL – Agrivoltaics offers farmers a way to adapt to economic challenges and the climate crisis while reducing the environmental impact of agriculture. The focus was both on companies that have been exploiting agrivoltaics for years and are now looking to switch panels, as well as new companies ...

BERN - ‘Lost Cells’ is an insightful exploration of the emerging cord blood banking industry that resonates deeply with our anxieties about health, technology, and the future.

AMSTERDAM – The Investigative Teaching Lab was an intensive on-the-job training course for European investigative journalists, developed by The Investigative Desk, a Dutch non-profit for investigative journalism.

NOUAKCHOTT - In the Sahel, Mauritania is the only country spared from jihadist incursions and large-scale violence. Meanwhile, nearly two hundred thousand Malian refugees are staying both in the Mauritanian refugee camp of M'bera and in the villages of the Hodh Chargui border region.

BERLIN – This investigation focuses on the winners and losers in the online sex work revolution, where people can buy digital subscriptions to explicit content. A pioneer of this model is OnlyFans, a booming platform whose users spent $6.6 billion in 2023 alone.

SKOPJE / SOFIA – North Macedonia faces record forest loss for the second year in a row, outpacing other countries in the Western Balkans. According to the European Forest Fire Information System, between 2020 and 2024, wildfires have ravaged 134,314 hectares of forest and woodlands in North ...

KAMPALA / PARIS  - This investigation reveals that investments in Uganda's controversial oil projects, led by France's TotalEnergies and totalling $20 billion, primarily benefit President Museveni's inner circle, including his family members, military officials, ministerial staff and diplomats.

BUCHAREST - Toxic chemical smuggling flourished on Romania's borders while the country struggled to become a member of the Schengen area.

AMSTERDAM – This investigative project explores how Big Food and pharmaceutical companies profit from both the causes and "solutions" to obesity. Research by The Investigative Desk for Follow the Money shows that Big Food not only promotes unhealthy eating habits, but also invests in products that ...

DONETSK - As a young reporter, Arnaud De Decker toured Ukraine, a country torn apart by the biggest war on the European continent since World War II.

ALICANTE/BARI – Southern Europe, especially Italy and Spain, is facing a growing environmental crisis — the rapid desiccation of olives as well as other kinds of trees. In Italy it has caused significant ecological and economic losses, but several scientific approaches show that the plants could be ...

BRUSSELS – Today, the commercial seed market is dominated by five agricultural conglomerates: BASF, Bayer/Monsanto, DowDuPont/Corteva, Syngenta/ChemChina and Limagrain. In Europe alone, they dominate 95% of the vegetable seed supply. But why is this the case, and what does it have to do with ...

BELGRADE - Cocaine production and trafficking has reached record levels, with organised crime groups from the Western Balkans playing a major role in the EU market, working with Dutch groups. The recent hacking of the encrypted messaging platform Sky ECC has revealed the inner workings of criminal ...

MADRID - The surrogacy landscape in Europe reveals a complex interplay of ethical issues and varied legal frameworks as the demand for surrogacy services continues to grow in the global North. This investigation examens the surrogacy practices in Spain, Greece, Ukraine, and Georgia, highlighting ...

CLUJ-NAPOCA / VALENI - As the European Union grows eastward, many children in Eastern Europe are left behind in their home countries while their parents go to Western Europe for better economic opportunities.

RIGA - In February 2023, the European Union agreed on the 10th package of sanctions against Russian goods, including the import of bitumen. Despite these bans, 29,5 thousand tonnes of bitumen worth $7.8 million were exported from Russia to Latvia in 2023, as calculated by The Chronicles.Media using ...

TANGIER - When fishmonger Mohsin Fikri is crushed in a rubbish truck, the Riffins have had enough. They demand that their region finally be developed after decades of backwardness: they want more jobs, better healthcare and, most importantly, recognition of their historic struggle against ...

ONLINE – The goal of this fellowship programme is to train a first cohort of 3 environmental journalists working in different European newsrooms so they can involve citizens in their public-interest investigations by turning communities into active researchers.