The Iberifier Observatory, an alliance of universities, verifiers and research centres promoted by the European Commission to combat disinformation in Spain and Portugal, has started its activities at the University of Navarra. In this first meeting the members of the Observatory have shared their progress and the four lines of work: identification and verification of disinformation, strategic advice and media literacy.

Endowed with 1.47 million euros and led by Ramón Salaverría, Full Professor of Journalism at the University of Navarra, Iberifier is one of the eight digital media observatories promoted by the European Commission last spring to monitor and combat the threat of disinformation. The group of work is composed of more than 70 researchers from 23 institutions: twelve universities, five verifiers and news agencies, and six other multidisciplinary research centers.

The first meeting of work of group has served to share the four lines of work of the observatory. Firstly, the creation of a digital map of 5,000 media outlets in Spain and Portugal, which will enable a detailed analysis of the trends in the evolution of the journalistic industry in the Iberian territory. Based on this mapping, a work will be carried out to identify disinformative content, at partnership with the main verification platforms in the two countries. 

The identification and verification work will show the real dimension of the threat of misinformation, resulting in a series of strategic reports related to politics, Economics and other areas of the media industry. Finally, the Iberifier Observatory team will develop a series of media literacy initiatives in coordination with the Departments of Education in some autonomous communities and with the Portuguese Government. The goal of these initiatives is promote criteria for the use of information in order to better face the threat of misinformation.

The Iberifier Observatory is one of the projects that forms part of the University of Navarra's research Society and Digital Communication of the University of Navarra's Strategy 2025.

List of institutions participating in IBERIFIER

Universities

• University of Navarra (IP)

• high school Universitário de Lisboa - ISCTE

• University of Granada

• Carlos III University of Madrid

• University of Santiago de Compostela

• Polytechnic University of Valencia

• Polytechnic University of Madrid

• Miguel Hernández University of Elche

• Universitat de València - Estudi General

• University of Aveiro

• San Pablo CEU University Foundation

• King Juan Carlos University

Verifiers and news agencies

• Maldita.es

• EFE Verifies

• Verificat

• Polygraph

• Lusa - News Agency of Portugal

Other centres of research

• Real high school Elcano

• FECYT

• Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación

• Centro Protocolar de Formação Profissional para Jornalistas - Cenjor

• OberCom - Communication Observatory

• Associação Literacia Para os average e Jornalismo