Deadline: 20-Jan-21
The European Commission (EC) has launched a call for proposals for Media Freedom and Investigative Journalism.
This Call combines three references in the European Parliament’s budgetary remarks for 2020:
- Action 1 – Pilot Project: A Europe-wide response mechanism for violations of press and media freedom;
- Action 2 – Preparatory Action: Cross-border investigative journalism fund;
- Action 3 – Pilot Project: Supporting investigative journalism and media freedom in the EU.
Objectives
- Action 1 – Pilot Project: A Europe-wide response mechanism for violations of press and media freedom: The Europe-wide rapid response mechanism for violations of press and media freedom is meant to mitigate the consequences of the deterioration of press and media freedom in certain Member States and Candidate Countries. It will also provide a systematic monitoring of violations of press and media freedom across the European Union. This mechanism will make violations visible and provide legal and practical support to journalists under threat. It will be carried out in collaboration with European, regional and local stakeholders in the field of media freedom.
- Action 2 – Preparatory Action: Cross-border Investigative journalism fund: It is a challenge to sustain quality journalism and especially (resource-intensive) investigative journalism in the current fast-evolving media landscape. The preparatory action will contribute to ensuring such sustainability. The action will fund grants supporting journalistic investigations involving journalists from at least two Member States, thereby highlighting issues of common interest to citizen of several Member States and strengthening the European media sphere.
- Action 3 – Pilot Project: Supporting investigative journalism and media freedom in the EU: Activities to be conducted under Action 3 will be geared at providing support to independent, collaborative journalism in the EU Member States and at promoting media freedom and media diversity across the EU. The action will also help raising awareness on the importance of media freedom and quality and ethical journalism for democracy. The action should facilitate building a community of media professionals and organisations that are active in the field.
Funding Information
The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of the projects under this call for proposals is estimated at 3.880.119 EUR (three million eight hundred eighty thousand one hundred nineteen euros). The breakdown per Action is as follows:
- Action 1: 1.380 119 EUR (one million three hundred eighty thousand one hundred nineteen euros);
- Action 2: 1.500.000 EUR (one million five hundred thousand euros);
- Action 3: 1.000.000 EUR (one million euros).
Duration: The proposed maximum duration of the projects is 12 months.
Eligible Activities
The following types of activities are eligible under Action 1 of this call for proposals:
- Cooperation projects;
- Conferences, seminars;
- Training activities;
- Awareness and dissemination actions;
- Actions aiming at the creation and improvement of networks, exchanges of good practices;
- Actions aiming at the creation and improvement of digital tools;
- Studies, analyses, mapping projects;
- Legal and practical support to journalists;
- Advocacy missions;
- Financial support to third parties.
Eligibility Criteria
- The call is open to: Groupings of entities (consortia) – with the entities forming this consortia having or not entities affiliated to them.
- For projects under all three actions, proposals may be submitted by any of the following applicants or combinations of:
- Non-profit organisation (private or public);
- International organisations;
- Universities;
- Educational institutions;
- Research centres.
- Affiliated entities: Legal entities having a legal or capital link with applicants, which is neither limited to the action nor established for the sole purpose of its implementation, may take part in the action as affiliated entities.
- Country of establishment: Only applications from legal entities established in the following countries are eligible:
- EU Member States;
- EFTA and EEA countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland. Applications from legal entities established in EFTA and EEA countries are eligible as part of a consortium but the projects cannot be coordinated by an entity established in an EFTA or EEA country.
- Candidate Countries Applications from legal entities established in Candidate Countries are eligible as part of a consortium but the projects cannot be coordinated by an entity established in a candidate country.
For more information, visit https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/call-proposals-media-freedom-and-investigative-journalism