The following post is by Liliana Bonegru, Project Coordinator at the European Journalism Centre (EJC), and Lucy Chambers, Community Coordinator at the Open Knowledge Foundation.

The post announces a joint workshop between the EJC and OKF, focusing on how to get started with data-driven reporting on spending data. This workshop will focus particularly on EU spending data.

Interested in data-driven journalism and EU spending?

The European Journalism Centre together with the Open Knowledge Foundation is hosting a one and a half day data-driven journalism workshop on EU spending in Utrecht, the Netherlands on 8th-9th September.

Why EU spending?

EU spending is an important topic of investigation. The two most substantial data-driven investigations into EU spending in the recent years have been the investigation into payments and recipients of farm subsidies in the EU, and the investigation into the beneficiaries of EU structural funds (the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) in collaboration with the Financial Times). By bringing EU spending to public scrutiny, journalists helped enrich the public debate around this topic.

In this workshop participants will learn from data journalists who worked as part of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) structural funds investigation team and spending data experts how to get started with data-driven reporting on EU spending.

What will the workshop cover?

The participants will learn how to find and explore EU spending data from different sources, analyze it and find answers to their questions in order to produce stories.

How did the BIJ get the data? Can it be applied to other countries? What other stories can we get from the data if we compare it with other databases? Which Dutch companies and which public bodies receive funding? (How) can spending data be connected with lobbying interests? Do EU structural funds beneficiaries get funding under other programmes as well? These are a few of the questions that we aim to explore (participants are encouraged to contribute their own questions).

Workshop leaders?

• Caelainn Barr, EU data journalist, formerly with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ)
• Friedrich Lindenberg, developer with the Open Knowledge Foundation, working on open modes of governance and on government transparency.
• Chris Taggart, originally a journalist and later magazine publisher, now CEO and co-founder of OpenCorporates: The Open Database of the Corporate World, and founder of OpenlyLocal.com.

How do I sign up?

The workshop is aimed at aspiring data journalists, journalists, open data specialists, developers and others who have an interest in EU spending.

If you are interested in participating in the workshop please email Liliana Bounegru (bounegru [at] ejc.net) to request an invitation. Please include in the email your affiliation (if any) and a sentence or two on your motivation to join this workshop.

There is no participation fee but attendees are expected to arrange and cover their own transportation and accommodation.

Do you know of any relevant databases that we can use during the workshop? Do you have any ideas of questions and stories that we can explore?

If so please get in touch with us (bounegru [at] ejc.net).

If you’re interested in keeping in touch with developments in this area, you may wish to join the EJC’s Data-Driven Journalism group, the joint EJC/OKF mailing list on data-driven-journalism, and follow data-driven journalism on Twitter.

The official page for the event can be found here.