2025: Highlights from Constructive Institute’s busiest and most successful year
Another year of exciting projects, inspiring people, and working to change the global news culture has gone by. Read more about what Constructive Institute did in 2025, and find a video capturing the year at the end of the article.
Opening of the Asia Pacific Hub in Melbourne, Australia
On September 16th 2025 Constructive Institute Asia Pacific was launched. Kate Torney and the team at Monash University will further expand the ideas of constructive journalism through their mission to help students, researchers, and newsrooms in Asia and the Pacific adopt a more constructive approach to journalism.
“I’m so thrilled that the Monash University is taking up the challenge to introduce a constructive journalism in the Asia Pacific region.”
Ulrik Haagerup, founder and CEO of the Constructive Institute.
Your Vote. Our Denmark: Historic and unique election project supporting local democracy in Denmark
This large-scale project, conceived by Esben Seerup, consisted of many different initiatives. To strengthen local and regional democracy ahead of the 2025 elections, politicians, media organizations, civil society, and researchers were all involved.
The project culminated with 10 election festivals, with a particular focus on engaging families with children.
“It’s a great idea – so many people are gathering and they can engage in the local community.”
Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark
Improving our constructive news algorithm – providing newsrooms with our constructive news mirror
The Constructive News Algorithm is an innovative machine learning tool that uses language analysis to identify constructive elements and biases in news coverage. Designed to complement the editorial process, the Constructive News Algorithm helps newsrooms evaluate the “constructiveness” of their coverage.
Participating in the Constructive Journalism Conference in Croatia
At the first conference on constructive journalism in Croatia, this three-day event gathered journalists, editors, media leaders, and researchers to explore how journalism can also act as a driver of positive change — rather than only reporting on society’s challenges. Ulrik Haagerup, CEO of Constructive Institute was a keynote speaker, and Orla Borg, Head of the Fellowship Program at Constructive Institute, gave a workshop on constructive journalism at the conference.
Democratic mobilization of the next generation
12.406 students have now been a part of Sonja Morell Lundorff and Jesper Himmelstrup’s project. The two – and all the journalists helping them – continued their project and visited many Danish gymnasiums (high schools) and højskoler (folk high schools) in 2025, with their ‘Journalist for a day’-workshop. Democratic Mobilization of the Next Generation is a three-year project aiming to engage 15.000 young people in democracy through workshops in journalism and the role of media in democracy. 12.406
“We are very excited about how well the project is being received – we’re looking forward to visiting even more students in 2026.”
Sonja Morell Lundorff, project coordinator on Democratic Mobilization of the Next Generation
SoJo Europe Program
The partnership program promoting solutions journalism in Europe was successfully completed. This program responds to the need for greater collaboration among European newsrooms both to learn from best practices and also to launch collaborative projects to enrich their content offerings. It is especially crucial to break down barriers among regions in Europe and develop further cooperation between newsrooms in Central/Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.
New Narratives of Africa Summit
The New Narratives Project is a collaboration between Constructive Institute, African media innovators and 2030beyond that promotes a more constructive approach to the media coverage of Africa, offering nuance to both challenges and opportunities on the continent. In June 2025 we hosted a summit in Copenhagen with workshops and interesting presentations on the topic.
Masterclasses for journalists from all over the world and Fellowship program at Constructive Institute
2025 was also packed with masterclasses and workshops for journalists. And our Fellowship Program reached 100 fellows altogether. Three of our fellows of 2025/2026 presented their work at the AI Denmark Summit in December.
https://constructiveinstitute.org/news/27797-2/
Ready for 2026? We are. Watch the video with highlights from 2025.