Grants to stimulate Cross-border Local Investigations by Belgian and Dutch Journalists

In this version, teams of investigative journalists from Belgium and The Netherlands who have good ideas for a cross-border local investigation in the region are involved.

Funding Information

• For this round there’s €100.000 available. The funds come from the Flemish Government (Department of Culture, Youth and Media).

Which costs?

• A grant can cover two types of costs:
  • Expenses (both for freelance journalists as for employed staff journalists); these can include travel, visa, accommodation, translation, fixers, access to pay-databases, FOI requests, legal screening, etc.
  • Research time (only for freelance journalists).
  • Following expenses are not eligible for a grant: investments goods (such as IT equipment, cameras,), office costs, production costs, food and beverage, per diems.

Eligibility Criteria

• Both beginning (starters) and experienced journalist (seniors) can submit a project that cannot be realised through the normal channels of journalism, that has major news value and depth and that is also original, innovative and time-consuming.
• Teams of at least one journalist from Belgium and one from the Netherlands are eligible.
• If relevant to the story, team members from elsewhere may also be accepted.
• The applicant must be a journalist (written or audio-visual press), or be able to prove that he/she is aspiring to a career in journalism. Personal references and/or references to earlier work are essential in that respect.
• Only natural persons can apply for a grant.
• Projects with regard to investigative and special journalism must deal with topics that are relevant for Flanders.
• The project must be published in a Dutch-language medium in Belgium. A letter of intent for publication from at least one professional news outlet is required for journalists with more than 2 years of experience. For starters this is considered a plus.
• 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.

Criteria

• Scientific theme
• Added value compared to mainstream coverage / a forgotten story
• Relevance in society
• Originality and innovative methods
• Daringness
• Feasibility
• Newsworthiness
• Experience of the applicants, references
• Saleability
• Time-consuming

For more information, visit Journalismfund Europe.