Supported projects

BRUSSELS - A maze of European subsidy rules has created a lucrative niche: grant consultants. These consultancy firms earn substantial sums by assisting researchers with their subsidy applications. This raises a fundamental question: does current research policy steer science too much towards competition and market value, at the expense of an open, societal approach to research?

BRUSSELS - Journalists at Knack, LeVif and RTBF have joined forces to investigate the peculiar financial management of the non-profit organisation Poverello. They greedily buy real estate that often remains empty. The organisation appears to be very rich, but hardly ever uses its money for working with the poor.

EL ZONTE - El Salvador is the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as its official currency: "One thing is certain: it is here to stay."

ANTWERP - Karl van den Broeck, who succeeded Georges Timmerman as editor-in-chief of Apache in 2014, tells in a six-part series how the top man of De Persgroep (now DPG Media) committed a sophisticated stealth murder on Flanders' most important independent progressive newspaper De Morgen. 

BRUSSELS - A lot goes wrong with our tax collection. There are so many loopholes that the tax authorities collect a lot less than what the state is entitled to. This is one of the reasons why the government has to borrow and why we have a large national debt.

BRUSSELS - When is the use of a subsidy for an independent entrepreneur justified and when is there abuse? Sofie Van Nuffel came across statements that suggest that not everything can be guaranteed by trust alone. 

ANTWERP - Documents that Apache and Le Vif were able to look into show how Erik Van der Paal - the protegee of N-VA chairman and mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever - and his Dutch companion Marc Schaling extracted millions of euros from Land Invest for six years. All this time, the project developer could count on political support for controversial building projects in Antwerp.

BRUSSELS - Since its establishment in 1850, the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) has been seen as one of the most reliable, but also most mysterious, institutions in the country. After the introduction of the euro, our Belgian notes and coins disappeared, and the NBB seemed like a relic from the past. What is its reason of existence today?

BRUSSELS - A completely new view on the Fortis-case and especially on the very closed deliberation procedure in the magistracy. Wim Van den Eyndes book Fortisgate raises serious questions about the functioning of the judiciary in Belgium.

ANKARA - When you think of development aid, you think of poor countries. But the biggest receiver of EU development aid happens to be the 18th biggest economy of the world: Turkey. In 2013, Turkey received 2.4 billion Euros...

LIMA - Peru is one of the economically fastest growing countries of Latin-America. Still, inequality stays high and social conflicts are raging throughout the country.

BRUSSELS - Due to the banking crisis the Belgian government had to bail out 4 major financial institutions in 2008 and 2009 to prevent them from bankruptcy. Fortis, KBC, Dexia and Ethias initially received more than 20 billion of tax payers' money which they will have to reimburse eventually. But which role does the government play in the meantime now that it acquired seats as an important stakeholder in the governing boards of these banks?