Topics
Since 2017, it has been Policyinstitute.net’s mission to deliver meaningful articles and analyses, official documents, multimedia pieces, about soft security. They are published on a daily basis. As showcased on our five websites, they chiefly treat soft security through the lenses of digital communication and technology, as well as the social sciences: analytical reports, current affairs articles, and official documents. More specifically, topics treated touch upon preventing and countering extremism (P/CVE), impeding hate speech, and ways to avoid dis- or misinformation, as well as capacity building in the African Sahel region.

Content
The content distributed by Policyinstitute.net – on LinkedIn and on our project pages – is journalism in the premier sense, as it requires monitoring and researching reliable sources, gatekeeping, as well as thorough editing. All four of our project websites are accessible through the primary landing page, Policyinstitute.net. This platform serves as the gateway to our broader digital ecosystem, offering navigation to each individual site. We produce content in the framework of independent journalism, and the articles published do not constitute public relations (PR). The topics of the four sites are described in the navigation of Policyinstitute.net – however, the domain names are largely self-explanatory. For all major announcements of resources, i.e. lists of ongoing LinkedIn shares, along with other updates, you are invited to visit strategism.org, which serves as our central hub for information dissemination.

Hybrid status

Policyinstitute.net operates under a hybrid legal and organizational framework in accordance with German law, reflecting its independent and innovative institutional model. Rather than being constituted as a registered association (eingetragener Verein, e.V.), it is established as a not-for-profit-oriented business entity. The platform was founded by journalist Thorsten Koch and is legally registered under his name as an independent entrepreneurial activity. Hence, while formally structured within a business registration framework, Policyinstitute.net functions substantively as a non-governmental organization (NGO), guided by a clear public-interest mission and dedicated to advancing independent research, analysis, and policy engagement.

Network
Our founder, Thorsten Koch, MA, PgDip, is an experienced journalist, social science researcher and author, and not-for-profit NGO Manager. As a writer, he has made a career spanning 30 years in the fields of regional, IT, financial, and political reporting. Koch supervises a number of volunteers who have been contributing analyses about the above-mentioned topics. Thus far, Koch has distributed about 25,000 posts on LinkedIn, thereby cultivating a substantial network of academics and practitioners that now exceeds 9,000 followers and connections. Furthermore, he has been curating a digest, which is made available through the first three of the four project websites accessible through Policyinstitute.net, serving as a valuable resource for policy-oriented audiences.

Reach
On a good day, Koch’s LinkedIn posts garner about 2,000 views on the LinkedIn platform alone, reflecting a strong level of engagement from the audience. In parallel, the cumulative viewership of the four dedicated project pages hosted on Policyinstitute.net – as well as the three news websites associated with de-news.net and thorstenkoch.com – has reached 167 millions, as of December 2025 – however to some amount due to search crawlers. Notwithstanding, the said metrics underscore a substantial reach and a sustained interest in the disseminated content. In view of the wide dissemination and significant nature of the subject matter, it is essential for us to uphold ethical principles and to adhere to journalistic standards.

Further reading