Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

This session will explain the methods behind an investigation into the European Defence Fund (EDF) that uncovered how structural weaknesses allowed Israel’s largest state-owned weapons manufacturer - directly involved in the war in Gaza- to receive millions in EU funding, despite rules meant to support only European companies. The reporters will explain how they identified relevant projects and traced the flow of funds.

They will break down our data work (scraping the tenders portal and building a dataset) and guide you through how the EDF policy works, its loopholes, legal framework, and how to work with the EU’s defence expenditure processes.

In today’s political environment of increasing militarisation, where a huge share of EU funding is directed toward defence, journalists need to learn how to access and analyse European public defence tender data, understand the EDF tendering and decision-making process, and see how European governments fund and benefit from defence projects.

This session will demonstrate how combining data work, investigative reporting, cross-border collaboration, and legal analysis can uncover hidden practices, reveal intentional gaps and inconsistencies that favour the arms industry over EU principles and international law.