Luuk Sengers
Story-Based Inquiry, Groene Amsterdammer Investigative journalist and university lecturer
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Luuk is an independent investigative journalist, lecturer, trainer and mentor. For the leading Dutch magazine
De Groene Amsterdammer he writes about the effects of corporate power on our environment and climate, based on data-analysis. He also teaches research skills, data journalism and interview techniques to professionals and students and helps media and NGOs organise and carry out investigative projects. He is co-author of several handbooks on investigative journalism, editor of the VVOJ handbook (to be published next month) and co-developer of the internationally acclaimed
Story-Based Inquiry method.
Luuk started his journalistic career as a business reporter at Quote, Intermediair, Associated Press Services (GPD) and NRC Handelsblad. In 2009 he co-authored "Story-Based Inquiry. A Manual for Investigative Journalists" which since its first publication by Unesco in 2009 has been successfully applied by thousands of journalists and researchers from ngo's and is called by colleagues a "benchmark" for education in the field.
Since then, he has trained thousands of professionals and students on five continents in investigative skills and data journalism and ( co-) written several manuals and curricula on investigative journalism. His most recent works are
“Handboek voor onderzoeksjournalisten. Van vermoeden tot verhaal”, the official handbook of the VVOJ (2022) and a curriculum for Unesco (2021). He teaches at the Thomas More Hogeschool in Mechelen (Belgium), the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels and the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, among others.
Luuk also consulted for NGOs including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Amnesty International and Oxfam and is a regular speaker at IRE, GIJC, CIJ and Data Harvest conferences, the world's leading forums for best practice in investigative journalism. He sat on the board of the VVOJ, the Dutch-Flemish association of investigative journalists, for ten years. Luuk holds a Master's degree in Social and Economic History from Radboud University Nijmegen.