FUNDACION CIUDADANA CIVIO

Their core work

CIVIO is a Madrid-based civic tech NGO that turns complex public-sector data into tools, visualizations, and investigations that hold governments accountable. Their core work sits at the intersection of data journalism, open data infrastructure, and digital rights — they build platforms that make budget data, procurement records, and public spending legible to citizens and journalists. In H2020, they contributed that rare combination of technical data expertise and editorial/journalistic judgment to projects on financial transparency and AI-driven fake news detection. They are not a research lab; they are practitioners who can translate research outputs into real public-facing applications.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first H2020 project (2015–2017), CIVIO focused squarely on government financial transparency — making public budgets machine-readable and accessible through a dedicated platform. By 2018, they had pivoted toward information integrity and media disinformation, joining an AI and big-data consortium to tackle fake news at scale. The trajectory moves from structured open-data infrastructure toward the harder problem of unstructured, adversarial information environments, suggesting growing confidence in applying data science methods to media and social contexts.

CIVIO appears to be moving from open government data toward broader information integrity challenges — a direction that intersects with AI, media regulation, and digital democracy, all active EU funding priorities.

How they like to work

CIVIO has never led an H2020 project, always joining as a participant — consistent with a civil-society organization that contributes specialist expertise rather than managing large consortia. With 15 unique partners across 9 countries in just two projects, they operate within large, internationally diverse consortia rather than tight bilateral partnerships. This suggests they are sought as a credibility and end-user voice: the organization that grounds a technical project in real journalistic or civic practice.

CIVIO has built a network of 15 partners spanning 9 countries from only 2 projects, indicating broad European connectivity relative to their project volume. Their collaborations span both ICT and Society pillars, meaning their partners include technical universities, media organizations, and public-sector bodies.

What sets them apart

CIVIO occupies a rare niche: a non-profit with genuine technical data skills AND editorial credibility, making them one of the few H2020 participants who can simultaneously build a data platform and publish an investigative story about it. For a consortium working on transparency, disinformation, or digital democracy, they bring the end-user and civil society legitimacy that academic or corporate partners cannot credibly provide. Their Spanish base and bilingual capacity also makes them a natural entry point for Iberian public-sector pilots.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FANDANGO
  Their largest project by EC contribution (€245,625) and most technically ambitious — an Innovation Action combining big data, AI, and media analysis to detect and trace fake news propagation, placing CIVIO in the center of a major EU digital policy concern.
• OpenBudgets.eu
  Directly aligned with CIVIO's core public mission of financial transparency, this project produced a live platform for public-sector budget data — a concrete, deployable output rather than pure research.