"In spring of 2023 Fojo commissioned an internal report to map out the organisation’s past and present engagements with higher education institutions (HEIs) and academia. In autumn 2023 this report is being published as a Fojo Media Insight with the aim of sharing the organisational learning from these engagements with other organisations following a similar agenda. The mapping found three distinct but overlapping areas regarding these engagements: (1) Capacity building of universities and other HEIs, (2) Academic collaborations, and (3) HEI networks. The first area mainly concerns Fojo’s international projects and highlights the work Fojo has done to capacitate HEIs to improve the quality of education in journalism. The second area shows Fojo’s contributions to academic knowledge in the field of journalism and journalism education. Lastly, the third area deals with all the HEI networks that are both loosely and tightly bound to various Fojo-operations but have not yet yielded any formal academic output.
From the mapping, the report then outlines several opportunities for Fojo to deepen its engagement with HEIs and academia. One such opportunity is to utilise the untapped potential of the extensive HEI network that is currently not being explored. Furthermore, Fojo can improve at linking its engagements between projects, both in the international and Swedish operations. To increase the relevance of Fojo as an academic actor, one opportunity would be to increase the visibility of studies conducted within the scope of Fojo’s projects and in other collaborations. Fojo could also utilise the fact that the institute is tied to a Swedish university to much higher degree when it comes to applying for research funding. The report concludes that Fojo has contributed to bridging the gap between classroom and newsroom in several countries over the past years but that is under utilising its somewhat unique position at the intersection of academia and media development. Should this improve, Fojo could aim at being at the forefront of academic fields such as sustainable journalism, fact-checking, and green media evelopment." (Abstract)