Local Cross-Border Journalism Grant Programme

Description

1)  Objective

This grant programme supports local cross-border investigative teams of professional journalists and/or news outlets to bring the locals to the European level as well as to local citizens all over Europe. Compelling stories can be found everywhere, even at the local level. Unlike other parts of the world, local journalists in some European countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands do not engage in in-depth research or investigative journalism.

There are many reasons why the lack of interest among these local journalists to pursue comprehensive projects exist, for example, a lack of funding. This grant programme aims to address the shortage of local journalists and award grants to local investigative and in-depth journalistic projects. The key aspect of this programme is the cross-border collaboration, which will allow interested local journalists and/or media outlets to explore possible solutions using expansive resources. This project also aims to spur more critical thinking about society’s pressing problems, increase the level of debate, and foster civic engagement. The grant can also offer support to preliminary work in the development of new investigative and in-depth projects.

Along with promoting investigative journalism among local cities and/or regions, this project also plans to develop a training programme in various aspects of investigative journalism, local audience engagement, and security as most local journalists lack or have few resources available at their disposal. They may also lack experience with cross-border investigative journalism. The training programmes will include experienced partners with a reputable background and extensive experience in their fields.

2) Eligibility

Journalists that reside from countries that are members of the European Union and non-EU participating countries, which include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Tunisia, are eligible to apply. However, they also welcome countries from outside the European Union as long as any proposal has a clear European dimension to it.

3) Location

Actions must take place in European Union and non-EU participating countries.

4) Budget

In practice, grants could vary from e.g. €2,000 for smaller investigations to €10,000 or even more for very large investigations that involve newsrooms in many countries, require a lot of research and expenses, data access, legal screening, etc., and yield a large series of publications. The total available amount per call to be distributed among all supported investigations will be €100,000.

5) Application