NEWS: Journalism partnerships - Pluralism

Overview

Objectives

The overall objective of this call is to promote media literacy and a pluralistic media environment, ultimately fostering artistic expression, intercultural dialogue and social inclusion. This strand specifically focuses on providing support to media organisations and independent journalists through the creation of funding schemes and other capacity-building measures. These actions will target media active in sectors of special relevance to democracy and civic participation, such as local and regional media, community media, independent and investigative journalism and other organisations delivering public interest news.

Activities/actions supported

This call covers activities related to reskilling and upskilling. Under this call, applicants can develop and implement funding schemes for either local and regional media, independent and investigative journalism, or other organisations delivering public interest news/journalism. They will support activities related to editorial production, the development of governance standards, improvement of news dissemination, engagement of audiences, development of maintenance tools, or training on any of the above topics. Additionally, applicants can propose capacity building measures, such as targeted trainings for journalists.

Anticipated outcomes

The Call for Proposals is expected to have the following impact:

• Increased innovation and creativity in business models, journalistic production processes and distribution processes;
• Increased interest in journalism, among various social groups, language groups and age groups;
• Increased viability of professionally produced journalistic content;
• Increased resilience, pluralism and editorial independence of media sectors at European level, such as local, regional and community media, investigative media or media specialised in public interest topics;
• Increased resilience of civil society organisations active in the news media sectors and protection of the news media landscape;
• Improved uptake of new technologies across the targeted media sectors in as much this contributes to media pluralism and a diverse media landscape;
• Fostering repositories of knowledge about media sectors delivering public interest news (e.g. by detecting areas with low provision of high-quality content and/or in which media pluralism is strained). 

Institution providing the funding

European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)

Size of funding

EUR 5 000 000

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies) established in one of the eligible countries (i.e., EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs));  EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme). The applicant must be a civil society organisation active in the news media sector (incl. media associations, NGOs, journalistic funds and training organisations focusing on media professionals, etc). These organisations should have recent proven experience in awarding and managing grants/or funds, in particular in the media sector. Consortia are allowed.

Overview of award criteria

Project proposals will be assessed taking into account the following four criteria, for a maximum score of 100 points:

• Relevance (30 points)
• Quality of content and activities (30 points)
• Project management (20 points)
• Dissemination (20 points)

Projects must receive at least 70 points overall to be considered for funding.

Procedures

Application procedures

In order to apply for this call, organisations need to create a user account and register using the following link: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/cas/eim/external/register.cgi 

Furthermore, the proposal must be submitted in 4 parts:

• Part A:  administrative information about the applicant organisations and the summarised budget for the proposal (to be filled in directly online).
• Part B:  technical content of the proposal. Organisations need to download the mandatory word template, fill it in and upload it as a PDF file.
• Part C contains additional project data.
• Annexes to be uploaded as PDF file. 

Application forms are available in the link of the call (see below).

Application support available

For help related to this call, please contact: EACEA-CREATIVE-EUROPE-JOURNALISM-PARTNERSHIPSec [dot] europa [dot] eu (EACEA-CREATIVE-EUROPE-JOURNALISM-PARTNERSHIPS[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu).

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info