Journalism Entrepreneurship Summit 2015

Journalism entrepreneurship isn’t new. What is new is the level of interest amongst seasoned and would-be entrepeneurs, business startup support agencies, funders, policy makers, educators and researchers concerned about the health of the Fourth Estate.

Still rare, though, are platforms where these various interest groups can connect. That is the aim of the Journalism Entrepreneurship Summit to be held on 27 February 2015 at Google Campus in London.

The day-long workshop will include four panels - journalism entrepreneurs; funding and support agencies; policy makers; and researchers and educators - who willl all reflect on one question: What we did, what we learned, and what we (all) might do next?

Registration opens at 9am with the programme running from 9:30 to 5:30pm followed by a networking reception. Participants are also invited to continue the conversation over dinner. There are only 60 spaces available for this event.

Confirmed participants include:

• Peter Barron is Google's director of communication and public affairs for Europe, Middle East and Africa, and a former editor of BBC Newsnight.
• Eliot Higgins is the founder of the Brown Moses Blog and the investigative journalism site Bellingcat, and has pioneered the use of open source investigation in conflict zones.
• Kathryn Geels leads on Nesta’s Destination Local Programme. The programme aims to stimulate a diverse and sustainable UK base of hyperlocal media services that create public value.
• Simon Perry is a founder of Onthewight.com and a participant in the MADE Project.
  
• Tim Dawson is the vice president of the National Union of Journalists for Britain and Ireland.
  
• William Perrin is the founder of Talk About Local and a former Policy Advisor to 10 Downing Street. He currently also serves on the Advisory Board of the Labour Party's Digital Government Review.
• Rasmus Kleis Nielson is the research director at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.
• Kevin Rafter is associate professor of political communication at Dublin City University and a non-executive director of Oxfam Ireland.
  
• Martin Moore is the director of the Media Standards Trust.
  
• Maria Teresa Ronderos is the director of the Open Society Program on Independent Journalism.
  
• Jane Singer is Professor of Journalism Innovation at City University London.
• Douglas White is Head of Advocacy at the Carnegie UK Trust. He oversees the Trust’s Neighbourhood News and Library Lab programmes and leads the organisation’s working on tackling digital exclusion. He is a Fellow of the RSA.
  
• Damian Radcliffe is honorary research fellow at Cardiff University.
  
• Sarah Hartley is the Editor and Co-founder of Contributoria and the CEO of Talk About Local.
  
• Barbara Trionfi is the interim Executive Director of the International Press Institute.
• Mark Deuze is professor of media studies at the University of Amsterdam and author of Media Work.
  

The summit is convened by François Nel who is a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and Director of the University of Central Lancashire’s Media And Digital Enterprise (MADE) Project, a winner of the International Press Institute’s inaugural News Innovation Contest sponsored by Google. Other panel chairs are Sarah Hartley, Barbara Trionfi and William Perrin.

NOTE: JES2015 is a research workshop to be held under the Chatham House Rule. As such, participants are free to use the information received and generated, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speakers, nor any of the participants, may be revealed without their explicit permission. Our hope is that the findings of this research workshop will contribute to the broader journalism entrepreneurship ecosystem and, as such, the convenors will seek to share the findings in a variety of other fora, including events and publications.

You can find out more about the how JES2015 came about here and read the call for participation to academics here. You can also follow the conversation on #jes2015 on Twitter at @jpreneursummit.

The JES organisers will be staying at the Travelodge City Road, which is moderately priced and just around the corner from Campus London.

We are very pleased that following on from the summit will be two other great events that may be of interest to those concerned with journalism entrepreneurship – the Talk About Local Unconference to be held at the British Library on Saturday, 28 February. A breakfast meetup of the UK Data Journalism Educators group (#ddjedu) is also scheduled for 28 February. For details about that meetup, register your interest HERE and follow the Twitter conversation on #ddjedu.