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Panoramic view on the North Campus © Jürgen Huhn​/​TU Dortmund
COVERING EU COHESION POLICY

Institute of Journalism Develops International Online Course

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A group photo outdoors in front of a building © Anna Klinge​/​Institut für Journalistik
Mid-January saw the launch of the COPE project at Erich Brost House, TU Dortmund University. Professor Susanne Fengler (front) and Isabella Kurkowski (front row, far right) from the Institute of Journalism are in charge of the project.
Together with other universities and journalism institutes, the Institute of Journalism (IJ) at TU Dortmund University, under the leadership of Professor Susanne Fengler, is developing an online course on EU Cohesion Policy. In the future, the teaching material will be made available to all universities in the European Union that train journalists at Bachelor’s level. What’s special about it is that the course contents will be provided not only in English but also in the respective national language. The project was launched in January at the kick-off event at Erich Brost House. The European Commission is providing funds of €1m for the project, whose title is “Covering Cohesion Policy in Europe – Training MOOC for European Journalism Students” (COPE).

The objective of the COPE project is to provide teaching content for journalists covering the EU’s Cohesion Policy – that is, policies intended to enhance economic and social cohesion in the European Union. A course on this scale is known as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Together, the project partners are preparing such an online course with 14 modules in English, which will then be translated into the official languages of the European Union. At the beginning of 2024, journalism students at all 27 universities participating in the project will test it.

TU Dortmund University is the project coordinator and responsible for developing four modules

The Institute of Journalism will develop three modules for the course. Responsible for this work are Susanne Fengler, Professor of International Journalism, and Henrik Müller, Professor of Economic Policy Journalism. Also involved in the project alongside the researchers from the Institute of Journalism is Professor Christoph Schuck from the Institute of Philosophy and Political Science. He will develop a further module together with colleagues from the University of Wroclaw.

Professor Susanne Fengler is also COPE’s project leader. “The media play a pivotal role for political and social cohesion in Europe,” she says, “both for creating a European public and for the perception of EU policies in the member states.” The project is highly significant, she thinks, especially in view of the impact on Europe of the war in Ukraine. Through good journalism, she continues, citizens in the European Union will in the future have a better understanding of EU policy and be able to deal critically with it, for example in elections.

Isabella Kurkowski, research assistant at the institute and Managing Director of COPE, adds that EU Cohesion Policy has hardly cropped up in journalists’ training so far and that countries also understand the topic from different local perspectives. “COPE not only explains the EU’s Cohesion Policy but also teaches how to report on it. The course should thus help to train journalists throughout Europe in a sound and homogenous way,” says Kurkowski. During the project launch at Erich Brost House, Florin Rugina from the European Commission added: “The idea of Cohesion Policy is to help especially Europe’s less developed regions to progress and, for example, to create jobs.” The aim is to train journalists with cross-border skills in all countries by providing everyone with the same teaching material.

Project partners

The project consortium comprises researchers and trainers from TU Dortmund University, AP University of Applied Sciences and Arts Antwerp in Belgium, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, the University of Wroclaw in Poland, the University of Porto in Portugal, Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania as well as the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) and Arena for Journalism in Europe (an NGO).

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