The Evens Journalism Prize

The Evens Journalism Prize aims to reward journalists whose work contributes highly to making Europe more comprehensive and accessible to a broad audience. The biannual price carries an award of €15,000 and attracts nominations via a call that is sent to leading practitioners within journalism and related fields, including previous laureates and collaborators. The laureate is chosen from the nominations by an independent jury.

In 2021, the Prize was awarded in two categories: the Evens Journalism Prize | Education and the Evens Journalism Prize | Geopolitics. By focusing on these two categories, the Foundation hopes to shine a light on the work of established professionals who have developed an expertise in specific areas that might be overlooked or that are of particular urgency in the contemporary socio-political context.

Each of the two categories was developed with its own programme and jury. Both of the laureates’ work will be further highlighted through events in 2022, and is further explored through interviews published on the Evens Foundation website and shared via its social media channels.

The Evens Journalism Prize | Education

For its 2021 Education edition, the Prize focussed on issues including school, higher education and vocational education, and exploring the characteristics of specific educational policies and their effect on both the national and international community.

The jury was chaired by Valentina Pop, Financial Times, and included: Sam Freedman, Ark & New Statesman; Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck, Lie Detectors; Sally Reynolds, Media & Learning; and Ana Torres Menárguez, El País.

They decided unanimously to award the Evens Journalism Prize 2021 | Education to Justyna Suchecka, in recognition of her creative approach to reporting and her ability to convey the realities on the ground to a wide audience.

The Warsaw-based journalist uncovers the personal experiences of educators, creating stories that reveal the human impact of education policies and politics at a local and national level. The jury praised her impressive dexterity in surfacing and exploring specialised and often underreported topics. Confronting challenging issues while connecting Polish experiences to a broader European context, her relatable style of reporting uses an imaginative approach to transform and unpick complicated stories, creating accessible articles that open up the often complex field of education to a wider readership.

The Evens Journalism Prize | Geopolitics

For its 2021 Geopolitics edition, the Prize focused on contemporary dynamics in the European region, its power plays, geographical characteristics and recent history.

The jury was chaired by Valentina Pop, Financial Times, and included: Tatev Hovhannisyan, openDemocracy; Mariangela Paone, Uam/El País; Iliana Papangeli, Solomon; Rita Siza, Publico; Elien Spillebeen, MO*.

The Evens Journalism Prize 2021 | Geopolitics was awarded to Giacomo Zandonini, for his outstanding contributions to analysing European policy-making and its connection to and impact on West African countries.

The Rome-based, freelance journalist’s work reveals the often complex connections between European policy and conflict in West Africa and the Sahel. His articles explore issues such as migration and mobility, human trafficking, and the ways politics shape the EU’s response. The jury recognised his “unique talent for identifying thorny yet unexplored geopolitical questions and decoding them through the juxtaposition of official narratives and human histories”, adding that he “connects dots in unexpected ways, drawing together seemingly disjointed strands into a close and coherent narrative” with thorough and in-depth investigations. Zandonini’s work clearly demonstrates how important journalism is in understanding urgent issues.

Evens Media Education Prize: Special Event with 2017 laureate ZaLab

The Evens Foundation is continually searching for new ways to strengthen its network of laureates, support their work, and connect them to other collaborators.

ZaLab, recipient of the 2017 Evens Media Education Prize –which has since evolved into the Journalism and Education Prizes – is a collective of six filmmakers and social workers who collaborate to produce, distribute and promote independent social documentaries.

The Foundation is firmly committed to furthering the dissemination of our Laureates’ good practices, and in 2021 supported ZaLab in the organisation of two online events, one in Belgium and one in Poland.

The first of these was a three-hour online workshop, which took place on 10 May and introduced a group of students of Social Arts at the Institute of Polish Culture (University of Warsaw) to ZaLab’s approach and principles. Both ZaLab and the participants and representatives from the Institute of Polish Culture expressed their interest in developing further collaborations. Initial ideas for furthering this connection include student internships and workshops.

This was followed on 18 May 2021 by an online seminar on participatory video with ZaLab and Media & Learning, an international, not-for-profit association that aims to stimulate the use of media as a way to enhance innovation and creativity in teaching and learning across all levels of education in Europe. Hosted by Sally Reynolds, the discussion brought together a number of practitioners and researchers from Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands to exchange knowledge around three key themes: ‘Participatory and collaborative work during the pandemic’, ‘Engagement and power in participatory processes’ and ‘Promotion of participatory practices’.