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The StoryHunt: Uncover the EU was a training programme designed to develop and apply the skills needed to find interesting stories in financial data. With the StoryHunt we offered an opportunity to practice the necessary skills in a supportive peer-to-peer learning environment.

Together with my colleagues from Datenschule, OpenBudgets.eu, and SubsidyStories.eu, we invited journalists, non-profit organisations, developers and designers to dive into a massive database of the European Union’s primary financial instrument, the ESIFunds.

The StoryHunt was split into two parts: a series of workshops and a data expedition. The workshops were tailored to journalists and non-profit organisations interested in improving their data literacy skills. During the data expedition, we formed interdisciplinary teams that collaboratively worked on finding stories, first leads, and defining research questions around the EU and its money flows.