Helping inquiring minds to ask the right questions

Since 2003, the Inquirer Awards, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, have championed investigative journalism in the Middle East and more recently in Bangladesh. The awards encourage journalists to dig deeper to reveal stories that would otherwise go untold. All entrants are supported via investigative-reporting workshops, while winners are rewarded with a fact-finding trip to London.

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Promoting transparency, encouraging growth

Journalists in sub-Saharan Africa do not always have the resources to deliver accurate, probing stories about economics and business, despite a wealth of untapped research being available to them from economists in the region. Africa Means Business is a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which brings together journalists and economists in Kenya and Ghana to share skills, pool knowledge and deliver more business and economics stories.

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Adjusting to a multi-media world

Traditionally, a journalist trained in only one medium, be it print, radio or television. With media disciplines converging, a journalist is required to be able to function over more than one platform. In recent years, we've run an annual, UK-based convergence and multi-media skills course, in which journalists spend six weeks training and on work placements in UK newsrooms, including the Press Association and Guardian Media Group.

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Building closer ties between Europe and its neighbours

The €5.3m European Neighbourhood Journalism Network was one of the biggest media development programmes ever carried out by the EU. Over four years, we helped bring together and train nearly 1,000 journalists from 16 countries bordering the Union. Our work helped improve the reporting of EU stories by its neighbours and also developed an understanding of the problems faced by those nations in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

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Forming long-term partnerships

The Xinhua news agency is the largest news and information collecting and distribution centre in China and one of the world's fastest growing news organisations. The foundation has worked with the agency for more than 30 years, establishing a training school in Beijing and more recently helping to develop trainees' video journalism skills.

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Helping to get the message out

With the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) we deliver communication training for civil society organisations, environmental journalism education and crisis communications training for government officials. Our work with UNDP Ukraine aims to help non-governmental organisations to get out critical messages on issues such as disability rights, town planning and legal aid out into the media. Our work with UNDP, Nigeria, has supported its staff deliver messages to the media about the impact of its local development projects.

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Sharing best practice from the UK and overseas

Throughout its history, the Thomson Foundation has organised study visits for journalists, media businesses and government representatives from around the world. These aim to highlight both structural and cultural differences and to share examples of best practice, from government communication to media regulation.

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