The innovative aspect of the SDGs Journalism Reporting (SDGsJR) project is the incorporation and focus given on sustainable development goals on journalism reporting. It is a program based on the evidence which places free and independent media at the core for sustainable development. Its aim is unique as it places skills and knowledge on sustainable development at the core of high-quality journalism and its impact on government policies and public awareness. By learning how to monitor specific indicators on SDGs, compelling stories can be developed by journalists and therefore decision makers, civil society and the public can be strongly influenced.

The project was launched in November 2019 and is expected to be completed within three years.

Media is an important stakeholder in regard to societies reaching the goals of development – both as a contributor and a beneficiary. Notwithstanding, the Communication and Media studies curriculum in the Asian HEIs seems to not successfully match with the skills required for effective sustainable development reporting in order to deliver the United Nation 2030 Agenda for the Sustainability Development. In this regard, a new course will respond to the need for modernization of curricula in journalism and media reporting in the PC-HEIs, the changing character of journalist education with a focus on sustainable development as well as the need for strong journalistic and investigative ICT-based skills that recognize the strong correlation between a free, independent and pluralistic media system and the process of sustainable development. The curriculum content is designed to instill the skills and level of data literacy necessary to produce both short data stories on a deadline as well as longer in-depth stories that explain underlying development challenges facing the region through data and digital storytelling. By choosing what is in a story, how the story is told, and the diversity of stories, journalists and editors have the capacity to enhance or limit the information people will use to form opinions and make decisions.

Specifically, the objectives pursued in the Partner Countries, include:

• Improve the quality of higher education in the field of Journalism Reporting by addressing challenges in the Pannasastra University, University of Battambang, University of Nottingham Ningbo, Shenzhen Polytechnic, University of Malaya and University Utara Malaysia. Moreover, the objectives include developing life-long learning skills for high-quality media reporting on SDGs and ICT-based data analysis of journalists and analysts in Cambodia, Malaysia and China.
• Enhance the relevance of acquisition of better qualifications in the labor market and society to respond to the changing character of journalism education and the data analysis needed to be investigative journalist or analyst.
• Improve the level of competences and skills in the HEIs by developing new and innovative journalism reporting courses for journalism students and active journalists and analysts. -Enrich the innovation capacities as well as the internationalization of HEIs by promoting transnational cooperation of HEIs in the field of media reporting on SDGs and ICT-based data analysis on domestic developmental concerns as well as adopting internationally recognized teaching methodologies and online learning.
• Promote voluntary convergence with EU developments of curriculum development in the field of journalism and reporting in the higher education system through the sharing of best practices and knowhow.
• Promote people-to-people contacts, intercultural awareness and understanding through the development of an open digital platform that will help expand connections of the academia with journalists, officials, lobby groups, subject experts and subject stakeholders. Journalists covering sustainable development issues who want to tell stories from broad perspectives need to have networks that allow them to cover these stories.

The principal activity includes the creation, testing and adaptation of a 6-month journalism reporting course, to be delivered partially online together with a normal classroom. . In specific, there will be a collection of programs and qualifications designed to help preparing journalists, analysts and journalism students working in a dynamic environment where the challenges of domestic developmental concerns are of paramount importance.

The course will be constructed from the exhaustive needs’ analysis and a real-life transnational approach based on the exhanged of the best practices. For this reason, teaching and learning process will include mobility of academic personnel for capacity building between Programme and Partner HEIs. The final result will be the incorporation of the course as the core component in the final year of a bachelor’s degree programme in journalism or as a module in a master’s course in journalism or offered as an independent programme with a total of 40 ECTS. It will offer concrete tools to implement knowledge on SDGs in the working environment.

Another important activity of the project will be the development of SDGs Research Units in the HEIs that will provide relevant equipment and free access to information, statistics and tools for data processing, analysis and monitoring of indicators to track progress on SDGs. The access and exchange of important information for relevant stakeholders will be the result of a partnership built throughout the project and that will include journalists, researchers, officials, subject experts and subject stakeholders in order to achieve the targets of 2030 Agenda.

Moreover, the development of an online digital reporting platform will help initiating and supporting the idea of a lifelong learning and will strengthen links between academia and labor market. This platform will provide a virtual learning environment for the course and a forum of exchange of information, upload critical SDGs data, and best practices among journalists of Programme and Partner Countries. It will also allow input from experts and scientists to be published on the platform.

In addition, there will also be a development of vocational courses for the academic staff in charge of offering the journalism reporting courses well as capacity building for the academic staff of the rest of Faculty staff. The increased number of qualified journalists and journalism graduates will effectively address the gap in skills set required for professional media reporting on SDGs. Innovative teaching methodology and use of ICT technologies will contribute to the use and process of data for a precise evaluation on progress on targets on SDGs. Vocational courses for academic staff will enhance significantly the number of highly qualified staff in the field of Journalism and Media Studies and the prestige and ranking of the Asian HEIs. The creation of Research Units will contribute to the modernization of the HEIs infrastructure and the strengthening of partnership for achievement of SDGs for the 2030 Agenda.

To conclude, the strengthened partnership and created synergy between academics, journalists and other relevant stakeholders, will be of paramount value for creating high-quality reporting, make SDGs a priority in the national agenda and raise awareness of the general public.

The Project Website:
https://www.journalism-reporting.eu/

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