Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Investigating data-driven stories on environmental health, long-term pollution, or biodiversity loss often means facing a structural problem: the data don’t exist, or have never been systematically collected, not even by public institutions. In these cases, the only option is to produce them from scratch.

This session presents a journalism-led methodology that integrates citizen science and social research as core tools of investigative data journalism. Developed through collaboration with scientists while preserving editorial independence, the approach is grounded in concrete case studies and practical experience.

Drawing on projects conducted with communities exposed to chronic industrial pollution, environmental degradation, and conflict, the session shares practical tools, workflows, and lessons learned for designing, collecting, validating, and using original data when datasets are missing.

Participants will learn how to:
-design and run a citizen science project for investigative reporting, from framing research questions and defining indicators, to engaging and training citizen scientists, data collection, quality control, and journalistic use of the data- establish effective collaboration with scientists during research design, data collection, and verification through shared protocols and a memorandum of understanding
- design a rigorous social research process to investigate community needs and priorities using surveys, interviews, and qualitative methods, including collecting and analysing texts to identify trends, patterns, recurring themes, and undercovered issues
- integrate community-generated data, social research findings, and scientific measurements into original investigations and engaging stories.

The session also demonstrates how this approach can generate multiple, high-impact outputs: original investigative reporting based on co-produced data, policy briefs grounded in empirical evidence, and social research outputs in scientific journals.