OBCT is a think tank and a media specialised on South-East Europe, Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus and on the EU policies in the fields of media freedom, civil society, the enlargement and coesion.

Born in 2000 to provide a forum for knowledge-sharing and dialogue among civil society organizations working for the EU integration of SEE, OBCT is committed to strengthening the European project by supporting transnational relations and exploring issues which are crucial for the EU democracy.

To achieve its mission, OBCT developed a multi-sectoral participatory strategy that combines online journalism, research, training, knowledge dissemination and policy advice. OBCT is crossmedia, multi-lingual and transnational so as to stimulate bottom-up exchanges at the European level. Its targets are: CSOs, journalists, students and researchers, policy-makers, business, migrants, and the general public.

From its base in Trento, Italy, OBCT monitors 26 countries, regions and de facto states in collaboration with over 50 correspondents, including journalists, researchers, and activists, in the field. It publishes online news, analyses and multimedia features on a daily basis. OBCT’s website hosts an open archive of 10,000 articles and multimedia features and draws an average of 150.000 pageviews (Source: Plausible) monthly.

Building on its monitoring and reporting activities, OBCT pursues research on key issues which it publishes in papers and books and explores in documentaries. OBCT circulates these publications and productions for public discussion via its website, through social media and at seminars, conferences, hangouts and online debates. These public events also give experts and decision-makers an opportunity to interface with civil society. OBCT also uses crowd-sourcing and social media to complement the research undertaken.

Through this work, OBCT aims to increase knowledge-sharing about and among countries in Europe which, 30 years after the end of the Cold War, are little-known – and which know little about each other – thus easing the East-West divide in contributions to European identity.

With its publications, OBCT addresses the scientific community and, with its policy papers, it targets local, national and EU policy-makers. Moreover, OBCT produces audiovisual material and educational kits and it holds workshops in schools and universities.

To maximise the awareness raising effort, OBCT works on a wide dissemination activity that includes TV co-productions and hundreds of earned media every year. All OBCT papers, products, as well as the records of public events can be found in the Papers, Multimedia, Our Products, and OBCT Events sections of the website. OBCT distributes all of its content with a Creative Commons license and employs open source technologies.

Donors

OBCT is an operational unit of the International Cooperation Centre. It is sponsored by the Department for Development Cooperation of the Autonomous Province of Trento, the Municipality of Rovereto and Trento in Italy.

OBCT has a partnership agreement with the European Parliament and it carries out projects co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union, private foundations and European public and private bodies.