Apply for European Local Cross-border Grants

This grant, mentoring and scholarships programme aims at addressing the shortage of local independent journalism by administering grants to local investigative journalistic projects in Europe and stimulating cross-border collaboration. This programme will:

• Stimulate local journalists and (small) news outlets to conduct investigative journalism and learn from colleagues in other countries, creating a European network of local (investigative) journalists in the long run.
• Stimulate local journalists and news outlets to compare with other regions and cities in other countries that face similar problems or challenges, which are eminently European issues.
• Increase the dissemination, reach and impact of local investigative journalism.

Funding Information

• In 2024 the total grant budget is €475,000 to distribute over four application rounds.

Costs Covered

• A grant can cover two types of costs:
  • Working time of the journalists to conduct their investigation.
• Expenses:
  • Direct investigation expenses such as travel, visa, accommodation, translation, fixers, access to pay-databases, freedom of information (FOI) requests, legal screening, insurance, etc.
  • Following expenses cannot be covered by the grants: overhead, office costs, investments goods (such as IT hardware, mobile phones, cameras, software …), production costs, recoverable VAT, food and beverage, per diems.
  • Grantees must minimize unnecessary travel, particularly air travel. Their policy is to only make essential trips and to champion alternative ways of collaborating with others. This saves time and money, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions (that contribute to global heating). They ask that their grantees do the same for the work that they fund and report to them on the air travel they make.
  • The grant can only cover costs for research, not for production.

Eligibility Criteria

• Local Cross-Border investigative teams of at least two journalists and/or media outlets can submit a proposal for local journalistic investigations in Europe. These are local projects that have great news value and depth, and at the same time are original, innovative and time-consuming, and would not be realized without financial support.
• This grant programme is open to local journalists/media outlets domiciled in at least two different countries. When relevant for the story, team members from outside Europe can be accepted, too. At least 80% of your requested budget should go to journalists/media from EU countries.
• The applicants must be professional freelance journalists and/or media outlets. Personal references and/or references to earlier work are essential in that respect. Students are not eligible. Media outlets must be legal entities officially incorporated at least one year before the application deadline of the grant call.
• The investigation proposal must concern local cross-border investigative journalism. The aim of this grant programme is to stimulate local journalists and media outlets to compare with other regions and cities in other countries that face similar problems or challenges, which are eminently European issues.
• The result of the investigation must be published by at least two professional media outlets in at least two different European countries. Letters of intent (LOI) for publication from at least two professional media outlets are required.
• Journalists who were previously allocated a grant by Journalismfund Europe can reapply. The jury will include the result of previous grants in their evaluation of the new application.
• Investigative journalism published by professional local media in any form is eligible, no matter whether print, online, broadcast or cross-media. All journalistic end products qualify for a grant: newspaper and magazine articles, radio and television documentaries and series, photo-reportages and books, podcasts and journalistic non-fiction books.
• All relevant topics are eligible.

Assessment Criteria

• The jury will assess the applications based on the following criteria:
  • Added value compared to mainstream coverage
  • Relevance for the thematic focus of this programme
  • Quality of research methods and presentation/storytelling
  • Feasibility of the investigation, timeline and budget
  • Team structure and experience of the applicants
  • Work effort requirement
  • Cross-border aspect
  • Pooling research capacity and knowledge
  • Watchdog of institutions, policies and money
• Finally, the jury will also take into consideration the variety within the global selection of granted projects. This means diversity in terms of:
  • Region (both regarding stories and team members)
  • Topics
  • Methods and approaches
  • Publication forms
  • Team composition

Application Requirements

• The applications are assessed by an independent rotating jury of experts in investigative (local) journalism from. The jury members are chosen by Journalismfund Europe.
• The jury of the grant programmes will evaluate each project proposal separately according to the pre-set assessment criteria. As a second step, the jury will take into consideration the variety within the global selection of granted projects, securing diversity of the approved applications in terms of:
• Regional diversity (both in topics and team members – north, south, east, west dimensions of Europe, pan-European projects);
• Team diversity (gender, age, experience, skills, media background, origin);
• Diversity of topics (environmental, social, historical, cultural, political, economic, financial or other issues)
• Diversity of methods and approaches (data approach, constructive/solution journalism approach, etc.
• Diversity of outputs/publications (print, online, multimedia, video, TV, radio)
• In assembling both the jury and the mentoring pool Journalismfund Europe considers diversity and representativeness in gender, age, background, and professional expertise.
• Both Journalismfund Europe and the jury are bound to strict confidentiality – before, during and after evaluation of the proposals.
• The jury members remain anonymous until they leave the jury. This is to safeguard both the independence of the jury process and the confidentiality of the investigations. After their mandate is finished, the names of the jury members are made public by Journalismfund Europe.

For more information, visit Journalismfund Europe.