About

The Summer School of Journalism and Socio-cultural Research is an in-person intensive program for young journalists, bloggers, and researchers from all over the world. The school is held annually from mid-July to early August in Prague at the Charles University Department of Philosophy. This year the School will be held at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. Our School is an excellent media training and a unique opportunity to broaden your network of contacts. Our goal is to create and sustain a vibrant alum community. An essential aspect of the course are media projects which participants develop at seminars with professional editors and finalize upon completing the study program. Most classes are conducted in Russian.

School-2023 Topics

  • Creative writing and storytelling
  • Investigative journalism 
  • Media management
  • Promotion of scientific findings 
  • AI tools in media

Over the years, the mentors of the Summer School were Galina Timchenko (Meduza), Elizaveta Osetinskaya (TheBell), Arkady Ostrovsky (The Economist), Sonya Koshkina (Leviy Bereg), Vitaly Mansky (ArtDocFest), Sasha Filipenko (writer, journalist), Sergey Smirnov (Mediazona), Sergey Parkhomenko (Redkollegiya), Anton Dolin ( YouTube channel ‘Radio Dolin’), Ekaterina Gordeeva (Youtube channel ‘Say it to Gordeeva’), Irina Shikhman (Youtube channel ‘Let’s Talk’), Ilya Azar (Novaya Gazeta. Europe). Upon completing the study program, we want our participants to stay involved in the alum community, launch media projects and cooperate with quality media outlets 

Target audience

We are looking for individuals passionate about content creation from around the world. The School’s program is useful for journalists and researchers who want to promote scientific findings. We want to ensure maximum diversity of professional backgrounds: journalism, Slavic studies, sociology, political science, cultural studies and art history. The Summer School aims to help participants develop journalistic skills to work in media or effectively use media tools.
The Summer School of Journalism and Socio-Cultural Research is designed for those with basic media skills who want to reach the next level. At the end of the training, participants are required to prepare their individual media projects for publication. You can check the publications of alums here.
The School prefers applicants with up to three years of experience in journalism or related fields. However, work experience is NOT a mandatory requirement.

Conditions

Application period opens every year in the spring. Application forms with detailed instructions are posted on our website and must be completed online before the deadline. More specific information about the rules of submission can be found in the section called “Rules of Participation.” The School of 2023 will be held from July 16 – July 29 in Germany. The deadline for application submissions is April 21st, 2023, 23:59 CET.

Team members

Zhanna Nemtsova
Co-Founder of the Boris Nemtsov Fund for Freedom, journalist, director of the Summer School of Journalism.

Olga Shorina
Co-Founder of the Boris Nemtsov Fund for Freedom, journalist, editor at Deutsche Welle.

Marek Příhoda
Co-director of the Nemtsov Center for Russian Studies, Slavist at the Philosophy Department of Karlov University.