Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Learn how the investigative team at the Danish Altinget used scraped data from inspection reports to map structural inequality in Copenhagen’s nurseries and kindergartens, and how the method can be applied to other local areas and welfare institutions.

We scraped data from +350 inspection reports and created our own color coded ranking system to investigate the quality of daycare centers across Copenhagen.

Our investigation found that 14 daycare centers have serious problems, 3 had illegal practice and most of the problematic institutions located in a very small area. It lead to one daycare center being closed down (with the funds transferred somewhere better), an extensive political debate in the local elections and in the local government of Copenhagen and the most selling story in Altinget Privat’s history.

In this session we will go through the hands-on methods behind our investigation, and discuss how it can be applied to other countries, local areas or institutions.

We will focus on scraping data from websites and PDF's with a minimum of coding, of structuring data found in a large amount of documents and of maximizing impact of your investigation. Also, our talk will feature a warrior princess, a shield with a unicorn and a flaming sword!

Looking forward to seeing you.