Deadline: 6-May-22
The European Journalism Centre (EJC) in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) has launched the Solutions Journalism Accelerator that is supporting up to 18 European media organisations/ consortiums reporting on long-term solutions-focused development journalism.
Purpose: The Solutions Journalism Accelerator is a programme delivering grant funding, mentoring, coaching, resources and knowledge transfer to support solutions-focused development journalism in European news organisations.
Mission: To create demonstrable impact on the public, key stakeholders and the media landscape through raising awareness of, and enabling media organisations to undertake more, solutions-focused development journalism.
Vision: To inspire and enable all media organisations in Europe to build resilience through creating greater public awareness, critical understanding and positive social change about urgent global issues.
Objectives
- Support
- Identify and fund 18 media organisations/ consortiums across France, Germany and the UK that can efficiently execute and fully produce solutions-focused development journalism stories within a year-long series
- Coach 18 media organisations/ consortiums to develop the mindset, methodology and objectives of solutions journalism, and enable them to apply the concept through extensive reporting on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and wider themes of global health and/or global development.
- Inspire
- Stimulate wider uptake of solutions-focused development journalism by providing journalists and media organisations with resources and examples of best practice, and through sharing successes and failures of innovative adopters.
- Explore the business case that solutions-focused development journalism can create a more skilled, resilient and innovative ecosystem of journalism in Europe.
- Transfer
- Deliver solutions journalism train-the-trainer activities
- Establish a sustained centre of excellence within the EJC for solutions journalism knowledge transfer in Europe.
- Mobilise a network of nine solutions journalism Ambassadors across France, Germany and the UK who will facilitate collaboration, knowledge exchange and explore the application of solutions-focused development reporting in the 3 target countries.
Funding Information
Each of the funded media organisations/ consortiums will be awarded up to €130,000 to help them deliver one comprehensive solutions-focused development journalism project comprising a 12-month reporting period (i.e. 12 in-depth, separately published, linked stories recognisable as a series).
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants that meet the following criteria are eligible to apply to the Programme:
- Individual media organisations or consortiums of up to two media organisations
- Organisations must be opinion-forming media organisations that are based in and/or have significant reach to audiences in one or more of the following target countries: France, Germany, United Kingdom
- In the case of a consortium, the ‘lead applicant’ must be an opinion-forming media organisation even if the second organisation is not. Both organisations still need to be based in and/or have significant reach to audiences in France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
- Organisations (or in the case of a consortium, the ‘lead applicant’) must have prior application or experience of solutions journalism
- This can include publication of solutions journalism stories, receiving grants or other funding for solutions journalism initiatives, editorial staff completing solutions journalism training etc
- Organisations should be signed up to a press regulator, trust initiative, or part of a press association
- Organisations (or in the case of a consortium, the ‘lead applicant’) must complete, in full, the dedicated online application form and a project budget
- Organisations must have relevant policy/ procedure/ supporting documents:
- a minimum of three of the following should be published on each organisation’s website: Mission statement, Editorial policy, Code of conduct, Transparency statement, Complaints procedure, Diversity policy, Privacy policy, Whistleblower policy
- Organisations (or in the case of a consortium, the ‘lead applicant’) must have a bank account that accepts international payments
- Organisations that have had previous funding directly from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation can apply as part of a consortium, as long as they are not the lead applicant
- Organisations that have had previous funding directly from the EJC can apply as an individual applicant or as the lead applicant of a consortium.
For more information, visit https://grant.ejc.net/s/solutions-journalism-accelerator