Mitali Mukherjee on the work of the Reuters Institute in 2025-26

From our Annual Report 2025-26

In a year that has been challenging for journalism and academia alike, the Reuters Institute has worked with three clear mission-oriented goals: reinforcing our strength and leadership in analysing key journalism trends worldwide, building strong development opportunities for journalists and newsroom leaders, and exploring new ways to support the news ecosystem as it adapts to a rapidly changing world.

Our fellowship programme remains a strong and distinctive offering for outstanding mid-career journalists from around the world. In a time where journalism faces multiple headwinds, not least funding challenges and increasing pushback from powerful actors, the Reuters Institute fellowship helps journalists build a global network and presents the opportunity to work on solutions for journalism, from journalists.

Our leadership programmes remain highly successful in their ability to curate and host senior newsroom leaders for strategic conversations around a fast-changing world for news publishers.

The Reuters Institute’s research work spans both long-running and new facets of audience consumption trends and the state of play for journalism. In March this year we published a report on young people and news, analysing and summarising ten years of insights – a testament to both our expertise and our ability to provide deep insight in areas critical for the news industry.

Our work to better understand what the development of artificial intelligence might mean for the future of news moves forward at a strong pace and we will endeavour to expand the span of our AI-related work, focused on both audiences and journalists.

Our editorial team is the binding force across the three critical pillars of journalist programmes, leadership, and research. I am so proud to see the growth of our digital channels that help us share our research, our fellows’ projects, and our original journalism with a growing audience of journalists and media practitioners around the world.

This year has also been about new forays. We introduced a digital tool on our website that allows users to actively explore and use the underlying granular Digital News Report data in real time. We hope that this will be a huge asset for newsrooms and journalists.

Our mission at the Reuters Institute remains to explore the future of journalism and we are grateful for the support of our partners in that ambition. While this year has reflected greater precariousness amongst both audiences and journalists, our work remains a rich resource for news organisations, not just looking to the future of their newsrooms, but also looking to the future of their relationship with audiences.