NEW: Your first cross-border investigation
- Dates: October 6 to November 17, 2026
- Fee: €800
- Number of places: 15
- Application deadline: Midnight CEST on September 6, 2026
Want to take part in a cross-border investigation, but unsure sure how to start?
This course is for journalists who may have conducted investigations in their own country, and now want to level-up their skills, and meet collaborators to investigate stories across borders.
Our expert trainers will refine your cross-border skills by helping you execute a real investigation, with advanced training on collaborative methods, creating a team, conducting research, organising your material, structuring your story, finding funding and ultimately publishing your work.
This is no dummy run: our aim is that the teams you form during this training go on to execute and publish full-scale investigations of your own.
Cross-border collaborative journalism is a fast-evolving and essential discipline in an increasingly networked world. If you want to cover stories beyond national borders – from money flows, to influencers, to supply chains, to tech monopolies, to migration – this course is for you.
Our track record
Arena for Journalism in Europe has been supporting journalists to collaborate across borders for more than 15 years. Journalists who have received our cross-border training have gone on to publish agenda-setting investigations and win accolades including Sigma Awards and the European Press Prize.
Many people find life-long collaborators on our programmes and we are proud to continue to support them with mentoring, IT, networks, conferences, research and more.
Course structure and time commitment
There are fifteen places on this course. We will meet for seven weeks on Tuesday lunchtimes, starting October 6. Two of these sessions are scheduled time to work with your team on your investigation idea, with support from a trainer.
Students will have the option of meeting with trainers in between sessions for additional feedback in scheduled “office hours”.
So there is a time commitment: if offered a place on the course, you will be expected to join seven sessions (five taught and two working sessions). You may also discover that the investigative group you join needs to schedule one or two extra meetings to work on your story idea. There may also be some assigned work, reading or preparation. In total you should allow for 2-3 hours each week to attend the sessions and complete the work.
Modules
Oct 6, 2026 | Module 1: An introduction to cross-border journalism
12:00-14:00 In this first session you will meet your collaborators for the first time. We will look at examples of different types of successful cross-border investigations and we will take a closer look at your investigation idea, analysing its potential.
Oct 13, 2026 | Module 2: Research plan: the design sprint
12:00-13:30 In this session we will learn about how to use the design sprint to iterate your story idea. You will map out the structure of the story and work backwards to fill in gaps in knowledge. We will take a second look at other investigation pitches and begin to form working groups.
Oct 20, 2026 | Working session
12:00-13:30 This is an unstructured working session to give you time to meet in your investigation group, supported by a trainer. Come in your newly-formed team and work on your idea.
Oct 27, 2026 | Module 3: Research
12:00-13:30 In this structured session we will dive into research. We’ll spend 30 minutes mapping sources and learning how source mapping changes in the context of a cross-border investigation. We’ll then spend an hour on data. You will bring a dataset relevant to your investigation and learn tools to clean it and find leads. The data exercises will be offered in two strands: one more basic and one advanced.
Nov 3, 2026 | Module 4: Roles, funding and problem solving
12:00-13:30 In this session we will think about the roles and responsibilities in teams and how to avoid and address conflict. We will also look at funding for investigations and prepare you for any upcoming deadlines.
Nov 10, 2026 | Working session
12:00-13:30 This is an unstructured working session to give you time to meet in your investigation group, supported by a trainer. Come in your team and work on your idea.
Nov 17, 2026 | Towards publication
12:00-13:30 This final session will be tailored to the needs of participants but will contain a pitching masterclass and feedback on the investigations as they are evolving. We can offer additional support around coordination, security, artificial intelligence, data visualisation and other aspects as required.
Fees
A place on the course costs €800. This includes module tuition and support in between, but also gives you access to the secure collaborative working tools of Arena’s Collaborative Desk (normally €600 per team per year).
Concessions are available. Please contact us if you want to take part but fees are a barrier.
Applications
Applications close at midnight CEST on September 6, 2026
We will alert successful candidates by September 11, 2026
Submit your application via this form.