Call for Proposals: European Media Hubs – 2023

Objectives

• The core objective of the call is to contribute to increased production and consumption of plural and independent information on European affairs across the European Union. Applicants are invited to set up or develop media hubs (e.g. physical or virtual newsrooms) allowing for joint editorial production and common content offers between different media organisations across Europe.

Themes and Priorities

• Setting up or developing a media hub
  • The media hubs defined above must be sufficiently structured and coordinated for the purpose set.They must ensure the active participation and contribution of media organisations, going beyond setting editorial priorities.
  • Applicants are encouraged to justify the extent to which their editorial processes are inclusive and rely at least partially on joint production items. They shall also explain the extent to which the European-level collaboration foreseen adds value to companies’ regular and individual activities, beyond cumulating audiences.
• Producing pluralistic and independent information
  • Applicants must focus on original production and may also engage in curation of professional news and non-fictional content as well as its dissemination. They can cover different types of content (e.g. local, national or transnational) as long as their European relevance and perspective (i.e. beyond national markets) is explained. They should also indicate how they intend to generate this European perspective, i.e. add value to existing reporting of existing market actors, regardless of the topics they choose.
• Reaching people across Europe
  • In this regard, applicants are invited to make content available in as many European languages as possible (with a minimum of 5 official EU languages). Applicants are also encouraged to partner with as many media and other dissemination channels as possible in order to ensure impact – this should be spelled out and supported by evidence in the proposals. Proposals also need to contain a clear outreach/dissemination plan and indicate who the different target audiences are and how content could be tailored to their interests and encourage debate.
• Improving the consumption of information on European affairs
  • Applicants must take account of the wider political context in which the project will develop, and in particular the upcoming European Parliament elections. In this respect, a priority with this call is to better inform people across Europe about European-level developments and affairs particularly in the run-up of (but also following up on) the 2024 European Parliament elections, which may be subject to disinformation campaigns.
• Monitoring
  • Proposals should include concrete deliverables and set clear, objectively verifiable and quantifiable performance indicators for all activities, incl. content production, content distribution and audience reach.
  • The expected audience reach must be more precise than the sum of available distribution channels. Applicants will have to supplement their offer with a list of indicators aiming to measure how well the proposed actions and plans are achieved. Indicators will revolve around, at least, the following categories:
    • proportion of EU citizens addressed through the multilingual offer,
    • potential audience,
    • actual audience,
    • digital reach,
    • engagement through social media
    • editorial quality and European perspective.
  • As regards reach, objectives should be realistic, and for each of the target audiences include mid-term and final targets.
• Sustainability
  • Proposals should address financial sustainability in the long-term. If the project was already in place in the past, it shall explain why it could not become sustainable until now and how it plans to continue independently once the requested period of EU support has ended. Applicants should avoid unjustified overreliance on certain individuals or organisations.

Funding Information and Duration

• The available call budget is EUR 8 million. The EU co-financing is limited to a maximum of 80% of the total eligible costs.
• They expect to fund 2 to 3 projects. Project budgets (maximum grant amount) are expected to range between EUR 1.5 million to EUR 4 million per project but this does not preclude the submission/selection of proposals requesting lower amounts.
• Projects should have an approximate duration of 24 months.

Eligible Activities

• The following types of activities are eligible under this call for proposals:
  • Editorial projects, content production, curation and dissemination and related activities.
  • Coordination and editorial supervision – Journalistic research activities, such as data gathering.
  • Setup and organisation of collaborative digital or physical workspaces.
  • Building/maintaining a suitable technical web-platform and tools for publication and technical transmission.
  • Supporting activities (e.g. promotions, trainings, data studies).
  • Particular attention will be paid at the evaluation stage to the relevance and cost efficiency of activities. Applicants are invited to develop only activities that work directly towards achieving the aim of the call, and explain how their proposal adds to the existing offer in the market.

Expected Impacts

• Expected impacts are:
  • Increased reporting on EU affairs by media across the EU, from pan-European viewpoints and/or by comparing different viewpoints from within Europe;
  • Increased collaborations between participating organisations and consumption of quality news content and quality factual programming;
  • In the long-term, larger engagement of people in the EU with European news and affairs, increased levels of trust in media and an informed public debate;
  • In addition to the focus on EU Member States, the action can also address audiences in candidate and potential candidate countries.

Eligibility Criteria

• In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
  • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
  • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
    • Non-EU countries as mentioned in the work programme: candidate countries or potential candidate countries
• The coordinator must be established in an EU Member State.
• Proposals may be submitted by any of the following applicants or combinations of:
  • news media organisations
  • Other organisations active in media (private or public)
• Other entities may participate in other consortium roles, such as associated partners, subcontractors, third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc.

For more information, visit European Commission (EC).