Autumn 2025 was a highly active and strategically important period for BECID, marked by intensive partner activities, public engagement, and high-impact research. Across the Baltics and beyond, BECID partners contributed to investigative journalism, media literacy, and democratic resilience through international conferences, newsroom exchanges, public trainings, and policy-level discussions.
Delfi Lithuania was selected to host the global fact-checking conference Global Fact 2026, while Re:Baltica journalists received major national awards and took part in EU-level disinformation and AI policy discussions. The University of Tartu’s BECID experts and Delfi Estonia’s Faktikontroll team continued to play a key role in public education and election-related media resilience.
A central public engagement highlight of the autumn was BECID’s Propawheel installation at the University of Tartu Library during the local election period. The interactive tool invited citizens to explore eight common political manipulation techniques and reflect on how emotions, fear, and polarisation shape electoral communication.
Citizen feedback revealed widespread concern about “us vs them” narratives, personal attacks, fear-mongering, and populist simplification in political messaging. The Propawheel initiative demonstrated how media literacy tools can empower voters to recognise manipulation and support more informed democratic participation. From December, the Propawheel will receive a new permanent home at the AHHAA Science Centre in Tartu.
In November, BECID also launched its GLAM-sector webinar series, bringing together over 50 professionals from libraries, museums, and archives across Estonia. The first session introduced early findings from a University of Tartu student study on how memory institutions support media and digital competences. These insights will directly guide BECID’s upcoming training programmes and educational resource development.
At the same time, BECID finalised its Updated Communication and Dissemination Plan (D2.1) and Corporate Visual Identity Guidelines, strengthening cross-Baltic visibility, multilingual outreach, and consistent public communication.
Autumn Hot Reports and research outputs highlighted some of the most urgent information threats facing the region: disinformation campaigns targeting renewable energy in Latvia, the failure of major platforms to enforce the EU Digital Services Act, pro-Kremlin narratives surrounding protests in Georgia, and growing vaccine hesitancy linked to trust deficits and vulnerable life phases.
Together with new analyses of hybrid threats — including mass threat emails to schools and fabricated hate crime cases — these findings underline a clear message: disinformation is increasingly used as a strategic tool to undermine public trust and democratic stability, especially in the run-up to elections.
Read the full Quarterly Brief here: