We’ve got some news. The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is joining Code for Africa, ICFJ and PROTO as a constituent member of our expanding joint initiative, now known as the Plus alliance (formerly ICFJ+).

The integration with Plus gives EJC access to shared infrastructure, a global team, and considerably more technological capabilities to continue its work across Europe. We can’t work in silos anymore. By pooling our operations and resources, together we can work with news and civic information providers much more effectively than any of us could alone. That was the impetus that drove CfA, ICFJ and Proto to jointly form Plus in 2024.

Radical collaboration – among disciplines, among geographies – is the only way forward if we want to reach our goal at Plus: to cultivate civic intelligence – information that helps people make sense of the world and act constructively to shape it.

 

The EJC has a remarkable 30+ year history and is one of Europe's most respected journalism support organizations. It brings a large network of European journalists across 46 countries, along with deep expertise in areas like data journalism and climate reporting.

Like all Plus constituent organizations, it will remain a distinct entity within the alliance, while gaining the operational economies of scale and reach that Plus provides. Together, we build on each other's strengths, sharing regional expertise to help shape our work, and opening up new opportunities for innovation – and, crucially, scale.

EJC’s current board, chaired by Valia Kaimaki, will oversee a handover to a new set of directors. The incoming board chair will be Miguel Castro, who brings decades of experience in international journalism and philanthropy.

EJC's programmes and operations will be led by its existing director of programmes and impact Vera Penêda, finance director John van Havere and programme manager Juliette Gerbais, who together bring deep institutional knowledge to the organisation's work across Europe. They join more than a dozen Plus staffers across Europe, including from Czechia, France and Italy.  Plus, a registered non-profit in South Africa, also has ~150 other staff across Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and the Americas.

Our new-ish name leans into the many “pluses” the alliance is all about. Of course, it reflects our expansion into a larger consolidated entity with strong institutional footholds across multiple regions. But it’s also about who we work with. At Plus, we collaborate with journalists, technologists, civil society, researchers and others to forge stronger, more effective news and information ecosystems.

If you want learn more about the Plus alliance, click here.

Onwards!