International Development Journalism Grants

Deadline: 26 February 2014 (22:00 CET)
Open to: journalists and relevant media outlets that target audiences in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom
Grant: minimum amount of €8,000, with the average grant amount being €20,000

Description

The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is pleased to announce that it has received financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance journalistic coverage of issues related to global development and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The Centre will provide a selection of innovative reporting projects with the necessary funds to enable journalists, editors, and development stakeholders to perform thorough research and to develop entirely new and experimental reporting and presentation methods. They will also be able to use multi-platform approaches and to think laterally across disciplines and techniques of journalistic storytelling.

Please see the Frequently Asked Questions page HERE for more details.

Eligibility

Journalists and relevant* media outlets that target audiences in one or more of the eight European countries with the highest net official development assistance are eligible to apply: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Media published in any of the official languages of the admissible countries may submit an application.

Journalists and media outlets not based in the countries mentioned above, as well as freelancers, are ONLY eligible to apply as cooperation partners of admissible organisations. A “letter of commitment” for the story to be published or aired by an eligible media outlet will be required from all applicants, once they have been invited to submit a full-fledged proposal.

There are no citizenship or nationality requirements. As long as the media you will report to is a relevant media organisation with a wide audience reach in one of the eight eligible countries, you may submit a story proposal. Equally you do not have to be based in one of the eight eligible countries in order to apply for a grant, however, you do have to report for at least one relevant media outlet from one of these eight countries.

State owned or directly government-controlled entities are NOT eligible for funding.

*A relevant media outlet is considered to be one of the following: A public or commercial broadcaster with at least broad regional reach; a mainstream print magazine or newspaper with distribution at least in a region or major city with over 500,000 inhabitants; a print trade publication or specialist magazine of particular influence as a multiplier; a website of significant reach and audience, an electronic format such as a mobile application – or contribution to an existing app – with demonstrable potential to reach a large audience.

Grants

Seeing that they are looking to support projects of great impact and high visibility, applicants must apply for a minimum grant of €8,000. For your reference, they expect the average grant given to be about €20,000. A maximum of 25 to 30 grants will be made available in 2013. Applicants may apply for full or partial story funding. Full grants may cover direct expenses for journalistic research and study trips, including travel and accommodation, possible technical costs for equipment or crew, information procurement costs (such as access to professional databases or original data gathering efforts), graphics design and visualisation, adaptation of software, and other justified costs incurred directly for the implementation of the project. Alternatively, partial grants can be made available to top up existing reporting budgets.

The grant programme does NOT fund: salaries of permanent staff; indirect costs (overheads);expenses for the compilation and processing of data collections which are not eventually released into the public domain; purchases of equipment, machines, real-estate, general-purpose software licenses; bribes or otherwise unethical, illegal and undocumented expenses; activities violating the privacy of individuals; political campaigns or lobbying activities. Once the original story has been published, all projects funded through this grant project will be further distributed (in English) via this website. Publication under a Creative Commons License is encouraged, in order to allow for global and free access.

Application

The deadline to submit your story pitch is 26 February 2014 (22:00 CET). If your proposal is original and unprecedented, inquisitive and engaging, employs critical thinking and good “old school” fact checking, they will contact you with a request to submit a full-fledged application. This is the second round of the Innovation for Development Reporting Grant Programme for 2013. The first grants awarded were announced in May 2013. One more selection round will be run in the second half of 2013.

Can you tell a development story in an original and unprecedented way? Is your story inquisitive and engaging? Does it combine critical thinking with good “old school” fact checking and an exploration of new technology developments? If so, then pitch the heart of your story at the APPLICATION FORM AVAILABLE HERE.

Incomplete applications and mere news-gathering or news-reporting efforts will not be considered for funding. There are no fees required for submitting an entry.

Only online application forms that are written in English, or in any of the official languages of the eight eligible countries, will be processed. Once your application has been received, you will get an email confirmation. Programme staff may contact you via telephone or email should they require more information about your pitch. Please note that upon submitting your proposal, all further communication will be done in English.

For questions and inquiries, please contact the European Journalism Centre at info@journalismgrants.org. For more information, please see the official website HERE.

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