ICFJ International Scholarships for UMD's Howard Center Data Journalism Training Program

With funding from the Scripps Howard Foundation, ICFJ is offering full scholarships for international applicants to the University of Maryland's (UMD) elite Howard Center Data Journalism Training Program. 

If selected for a scholarship, recipients will participate in four online courses in a final project. The courses will be split in two terms. The first two courses will be made available in August 2025, and the remaining two courses, along with the final project, will be available in January 2026. Scholarship recipients will have six moths from their registration date to complete each course, and they should anticipate dedicating up to 10 hours per course.

Scholarship recipients will also participate in monthly ICFJ-led virtual discussions to connect with fellow international journalists and meet with prominent speakers from the field.

The online course will equip participants with skills to:

• Module 1: Generate data story ideas, analyze data, explore data visualization, text analysis, and basic statistics
• Module 2: Critically understand data sources, identify, and validate data, acquire data through APIs and scraping, and perform data cleaning, including with AI tools
• Module 3: Approach data visualization and storytelling for a general audience, including design fundamentals, various chart types, graphics, mapping with tools like Flourish or Datawrapper, and basic statistics
• Module 4: Learn computational thinking in journalism, the capabilities, and limitations of automation and AI, text analysis, rules-based and AI writing, programmatic pipelines, and automated analysis

This opportunity is well suited for data journalists looking to advance, as well as for journalists seeking to sharpen their investigative skills.

Scholarship applications due Aug. 10, 2025 (The UMD course will begin in late August 2025). 

Application Requirements:

• Applicants should be mid-career journalists (at least 5 years of investigative journalists experience).
• Applicants must have working-level proficiency in the English language
• Journalists from around the world (excluding the U.S.) are eligible
• Freelance journalists may apply
• Applications must be submitted via the ICFJ application form to be considered in the scholarship

Please note:

If selected for a scholarship, ICFJ will help facilitate your registration for the course through UMD.

If not selected for a scholarship, you can still enroll in the course program at your own expense directly through the UMD website (full tuition cost).