Apply to the “Life Under Occupation” Project

n-ost in partnership with Public Interest Journalism Lab invites 16 journalists from Germany, Poland, France, and Ukraine to take part in “Life under occupation” project. The project is designed to equip media professionals with specialised skills, knowledge, and resources to report deeply, safely, and responsibly on life in Ukraine’s territories temporarily occupied by Russia. Simultaneously it aims at building an international community of journalists interested in covering this challenging and sensitive topic. Finally its goal is to help increase the volume, accuracy, and depth of reporting on occupied territories in media.

The project will begin with an in-person meeting in Kyiv on 14-18 July 2025 and run till the end of November 2025.

During their stay in Kyiv, selected journalists will participate in an intensive training centred on the challenges of covering occupied territories. The topics of the workshop will, among others, include working with sources, techniques of interviewing people with traumatic experiences, nuances of Ukraine’s legislative approach towards occupied territories developed since 2014, etc.

Within the time of the workshop participants will be encouraged to form cross-border teams. In these teams or individually they will develop story ideas to report on over the next months.

After pitching the story idea to the trainers team, each participant will receive a stipend of €1,000. Additionally, the project will offer travel grants for the teams to cover their research trips to and within Ukraine.

The research trips should take place by the end of October 2025 and the stories should be published in German, Polish, French, and Ukrainian media by the end of November 2025.

Who can apply?

Applicants are supposed to meet the following criteria:

• Applicants from Ukraine should be based in Ukraine, have a proven record of working for Ukrainian and/or international media (staff or freelance), and have an experience of reporting on different aspects of war.
• Applicants from Germany, Poland, France should have a proven record of working for national or international media (staff or freelance), have experience in travelling to Ukraine in the previous three years and reporting on Russia’s war against Ukraine, be available for travel to Ukraine for training in July and further research trip for reporting.
• All candidates must be proficient in English, have at least 3 years of experience in journalism, and demonstrate strong interest in in-depth collaborative research and story production.

Dates of the workshop in Kyiv Ukraine: 14-18 July 2025.

For additional questions, please contact the project coordinator, Oksana Mamchenkova: mamchenkova@n-ost.org.