On November 16 at the EU info centre in Belgrade, Serbia, the winners of this year’s EU Awards for Investigative Journalism were announced, for stories published in Serbia in 2020.

The first prize for best investigative story went to Dina Djordjević for a series of articles on air pollution published by the Centre for Investigative Journalism CINS. Saša Dragojlo of BIRN and Dragana Pećo of KRIK were awarded second place, and BIRN journalist Natalija Jovanović won third place.

This year the competition received 28 applications, 26 of which fulfilled the conditions. Evaluation of the nominated stories was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, a jury consisting of Aleksandra Krstić, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, and Momir Turudić, editor of the weekly Vreme, selected 13 shortlisted stories. These were then evaluated by a jury consisting of Tatjana Lazarević, editor-in-chief of KosSev, Predrag Blagojević, founder and former editor-in-chief at Južne Vesti, and Tihomir Loza, executive director of the SEENPM network.

The EU Awards for Investigative Journalism in Serbia are part of an ongoing EU-funded project, titled “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey”. The project is implemented by the BIRN Hub in partnership with BIRN Albania, BIRN Serbia, Central European University, the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro, the European Broadcasting Union, the Independent Trade Union of Journalists and Media Workers, the International Federation of Journalists, the Media Association of South-East Europe, and Thomson Media.