How EUKI Fellowships Strengthened Climate Action Reporting 

Every year since 2018, five journalists from Eastern Europe spent six to eight weeks at German media outlets, while five German journalists set out in the opposite direction. These talented staff writers, investigative reporters, freelancers and other journalists of all ages were united by the mission to work as temporary foreign correspondents for their home media and to investigate stories about climate policy and action in their host countries.  

“We wanted to promote independent journalism and therefore gave the programme’s participants a lot of freedom. We didn’t specify any topics that they should explore in their stories,” says Clemens Bomsdorf. As one of the fellowship programme managers from International Journalists’ Programmes (IJP), he headed the organisation’s Central and Eastern European Bursary. The IJP grants up to 150 fellowships to journalists from more than 50 countries.

However, “Transforming Societies” was a unique element of the IJP’s fellowship portfolio, as it was the only programme with a thematic focus. When the programme ended, a booklet was published in which alumni shared their experience and presented their work. 

Delving Deep Into Climate Issues 

Tomáš Grečko from Slovakia, who was awarded a fellowship in 2021, discovered balcony solar power plants – an accessible power generation technology that’s still unknown in his home country – in the streets of his host city Frankfurt am Main. It inspired him to write a story about these mini power plants for the Slovak newspaper Denník N, in which he discussed their feasibility, costs and potential and the barriers to their introduction in Slovakia.  

For Sara-Marie Plekat, a freelance audio journalist based in Leipzig, Germany, the fellowship at Yammat FM in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2023 revealed just how important this field of reporting is. She recalls: “The political and social approach to the topic itself is different wherever you go. More than ever, I think it is important to talk about everything that is connected to climate change.” 

The programme cooperated with Clean Energy Wire, a European platform for collaborative and solution-oriented climate and energy journalism based in Berlin, to provide thematic expertise.  

A powerful network 

“All journalists know how important it is to have a network of reliable contacts ‘who may know someone who knows someone’,” says Helena Truchla from the Czech Republic. She spent her fellowship in 2019 with the German magazine Cicero in Berlin and is now a correspondent for the Czech public television broadcaster in Germany. For Helena, the networking opportunities offered by the programme were one of its greatest benefits.  

Each year, present and past fellows met at a conference to share their views and experiences, to foster cross-border cooperation, but also to network with representatives from various institutions, including foundations, local non-governmental organisations, the German Chambers of Commerce Abroad, the German Embassy and the German cultural institute, the Goethe-Institut.  

An online chat group serves as a forum for ongoing communication between the fellows, many of whom work or have worked for major media outlets such as the Czech weekly newspaper Respekt, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Slovak News Agency (SITA) and Radio-Television Slovenia. 

Long-lasting legacy 

In 2025, the series of three EUKI-IJP fellowship programmes, run in cooperation with IJP and each with a different thematic climate focus, came to an end. What remains is much more than the stories that were published or broadcast over the years. It’s the participants’ deeper understanding of European and member states’ climate policies and of people’s attitudes towards climate and energy issues. When the fellows return to their home media outlets, climate issues are not among the main topics they have to cover. However, they keep climate and energy topics on their agendas, are committed to pushing them and know about their key role for other sectors such as industry, agriculture and transport. They also know whom to contact if they need information or advice for their work about the participants’ home countries.  

Clemens Bomsdorf hopes that the truthful and dispassionate media coverage promoted by the programme will continue to spread across the participating countries. The media should avoid polarisation, remain realistic in their approach and not apportion blame for others’ failures. The network of more than 70 former EUKI/IJP fellows will be keeping a watchful eye on that.