European Cross-border Grants Programme - Grant Details

• Cross-border investigative teams of at least two journalists and/or media outlets can submit a proposal for journalistic investigations in Europe. These are projects that have substantive news value and depth, while at the same time being original and innovative. The stories must be relevant to European audiences.
• This grant programme is open to journalists/media outlets domiciled in at least two different countries in Europe. When relevant for the story, team members from outside Europe can be accepted, too. At least 80% of your requested budget should go to journalists/media domiciled in EU member countries.
• The applicants must be professional freelance journalists and/or media outlets. Personal references and/or references to earlier work are essential in that respect. Students are not eligible. Media outlets must be legal entities officially incorporated at least one year before the application deadline of the grant call.
• The project must be published by at least two professional news outlets in at least two different European countries. Letters of intent (LOI) for publication from at least two professional news outlets are required.
• Journalists who were previously allocated a grant by Journalismfund Europe can reapply. The jury will include the result of previous grants in their evaluation of the new application.
• Investigative journalism published by professional media in any form is eligible, no matter whether print, online, broadcast or cross-media. 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.
• All relevant topics are eligible. However, if your investigation proposal concerns the environment, please turn to our Investigation Grants for Environmental Journalism.

A grant can cover two types of costs:

1. Working time of the journalists to conduct their investigation. (Please note: working time will need to be substantiated with a timesheet at the end of the grant period.)

2. Expenses:

   • We allow what directly supports the investigation such as travel for reporting on the ground, visa, accommodation, translation, fixers, access to pay-databases, freedom of information (FOI) requests, legal screening, insurance, etc., ...

   • Following expenses cannot be covered by the grants: overhead, office costs, investments goods (such as IT hardware, mobile phones, cameras, software …), production costs (e.g. web design, illustrations, …), recoverable VAT, food and beverage, per diems, and content distribution.

   • Grantees must minimize unnecessary travel, particularly air travel. Our policy is to only facilitate essential reporting trips. We will not support costs related to in-person meetings of collaborators to discuss and coordinate research or editorial approaches. This can be done online. It will save time and money, and reduce carbon emissions.

   • All costs should arise during the project period, starting after the signing of the grant agreement with Journalismfund Europe.

Applications must include a budget calculation according to the budget template. Please read the instructions tab carefully.

For journalists who’d like to apply a more scientific, methodical and analytical approach to their investigations, the European Cross-border Grants programme now offers them the opportunity to work with a Project advisor and Experts to strengthen their work.

However, asking for a project advisor and working with an expert is not a requirement to submit your cross-border proposal.

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Project Advisors

• Applicants can request the support of a project advisor in the application form when submitting their proposal.Tick the box and explain what support you’d like to receive.
• The Project Advisor is primarily there to provide guidance for identifying and engaging with the expert most relevant for your investigation. Crucially, they can act as an intermediary between the reporting team and the experts to ensure that the peer-reviewed collaboration is fruitful while also ensuring that the principles of editorial independence are maintained.
• The details for managing the relationship between the various parties of this collaboration will be determined once the engagement with project advisors begins. There are various arrangements possible.
• The Project advisor may also play a mentoring for the reporting team by helping them improve their ideas and investigative methods, identify other sources, sharpen the focus of their work, and provide feedback on drafts. This will depend on capacity and specific competence. They are not involved in the research itself, or the writing.
• The project advisor will support the team throughout the entire project development, with up to 4 days of involvement. The project advisor will be assigned to the granted reporting team by SSE Riga from its pool of project advisors, in consultation with the team. The advisors have a range of experience as journalists, project managers and communicators.
• The project advisors will sign a contract with and be paid by SSE Riga. The applicants do not need to include them in their budget proposal.

Experts

• The experts will help enrich and provide a quality control to the investigations by deepening its analytical aspects, validating the research methodologies and ensuring an accurate interpretation of the data.
• All projects seeking the input of an expert should select to work with a project advisor. The experts will be identified and selected according to the topic of the investigation and the choice will be made by thereporting team with guidance from the project advisors.
• The experts are eligible to receive payment for up to 2 days to cover their work reviewing the information in the investigation. They will sign a contract and be paid by Journalismfund Europe. The applicants do not need to include them in their budget proposal.
• While experts are invited review the information, editorial choices are made by the investigative team and their editors. Crediting for the expert’s advice will be discussed in due time.

• For this grant programme, a total of six application rounds are planned. In 2026, four rounds will take place with deadlines on 19 March, 21 May, 30 July, and 1 October. In 2027, two application deadlines are scheduled: 7 January and 11 March. All deadlines are at 1 PM CET.
• After the application deadline, Journalismfund Europe checks that formalities are in order and may call for more information from applicants. This usually takes one week.
• After this the applications go to the jury for assessment.
• Applicants are usually informed about the jury decision around 40 days after the application deadline.
• Subscribe to Journalismfund Europe’s newsletter to stay tuned and receive the latest grant opportunity updates.

The jury will assess the applications based on these criteria:

• Inclusion of an expert-led review
• added value compared to mainstream coverage
• relevance in society
• newsworthiness
• quality and originality of research methods and presentation/storytelling
• feasibility of the investigation, timeline and budget
• team structure and experience of the applicants
• work effort requirement
• cross-border aspect
• pooling research, capacity and knowledge
• watchdog of EU institutions, policies and money

Finally, the jury will also take into consideration the variety within the global selection of granted projects. This means diversity in terms of:

• region (both regarding stories and team members)
• topics
• methods and approaches
• publication forms
• team composition

• The applications are assessed by an independent rotating jury of experts in investigative journalism. The jury members are chosen by Journalismfund Europe.

• The jury of the grant programmes will evaluate each project proposal separately according to the pre-set assessment criteria. As a second step, the jury will take into consideration the variety within the global selection of granted projects, securing diversity of the approved applications in terms of:

  • regional diversity (both in topics and team members - north, south, east, west dimensions of Europe, pan-European projects);
  • team diversity (gender, age, experience, skills, media background, origin);
  • diversity of topics (environmental, social, historical, cultural, political, economic, financial or other issues)
  • diversity of methods and approaches (data approach, constructive/solution journalism approach, etc.
  • diversity of outputs/publications (print, online, multimedia, video, TV, radio)

    In assembling both the jury and the mentoring pool Journalismfund Europe considers diversity and representativeness in gender, age, background, and professional expertise.

• Both Journalismfund Europe and the jury are bound to strict confidentiality – before, during and after evaluation of the proposals.
• The jury members remain anonymous until they leave the jury. This is to safeguard both the independence of the jury process and the confidentiality of the investigations. After their mandate is finished, the names of the jury members are made public by Journalismfund Europe.
• Jury members are bound to Journalismfund Europe's strict conflict of interest policy, which is designed to assure the highest standards in terms of ethical conduct and to ensure the independence and objectivity of decision making.
• You can take some direct advice from previous jury members: "If you want a grant, here's what you should do".

• The grantees and all other persons involved in the project have to endorse the principles of the Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists as well as the national codes of ethics that are in force.
• Every grantee signs an Agreement with Journalismfund Europe that states the mutual arrangements and conditions.
• Grants are paid in two instalments: the first (2/3) upon signature of the Agreement, the second (1/3) after publication of the project and submission of the supporting documents for the expenses.
• Grants are paid in euro. They are only paid out on the bank accounts of the grantees, not via other money transfer services. Any bank charges for international payments are carried by Journalismfund Europe, except for exchange rates.
• Any journalistic product that is the result of the supported project explicitly has to mention the support from Journalismfund Europe.
• Applicants need to consent with Journalismfund Europes’s general grant rules.

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