On May 8, 2026, the kick-off meeting of the WIEGE consortium (full project titel: “Repeatedly deceived? Identifying, Understanding, and Countering the Effects of Cross-Platform Political Disinformation in the Everyday Lives of Young People and Adolescents”) took place at the University House in Düsseldorf. On this day, the participants from the various partner institutions came together to officially launch the project, coordinate key working structures, and plan the next steps of their collaboration.

The meeting focused on the presentation of the individual work packages, organizational and technical coordination, and discussions on shared objectives and interfaces within the project consortium. In addition, participants discussed initial milestones, questions regarding internal and external project communication, as well as potential cooperation and knowledge transfer activities.

The project partners from academia and practice – including researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and tech & teach– are looking forward to working together over the next three years and to making innovative contributions to the research on and prevention of political disinformation.

Author: Dr. Dennis Frieß