Grant Details

• Teams of at least two journalists, including at least one Dutch-speaking journalist and one French-speaking journalist (or bilingual journalist) can submit a proposal for a journalistic investigation about an issue that concerns Belgium.
• Only applicants who are legally residing/registered in Belgium are permitted to receive funding.
• The applicants must be professional journalists.
• Personal references and/or links to earlier work are essential.
• Projects should tackle an issue that is important to the local community but also has wider, cross-community relevance.
• Applicants must demonstrate a participatory approach. The local population should be given a voice through interviews, listening sessions, public conversations, and other formats that highlight local knowledge and perspectives.
• It is vital that the final output appears in both language communities' media, in equivalent formats and, if possible, at the same time. Letters of intent for publication from at least two professional news outlets are required.
• Teams should briefly consider what they expect to learn from each other. Differences in journalistic traditions, reporting cultures, editorial expectations and audience perspectives could contribute to the added value of the project.
• Investigative journalism published by professional media in any form is eligible, whether print, online, broadcast or cross-media. Your investigation can be published as newspaper and magazine articles, radio and television documentaries and series, photo-reportages and books, podcasts and journalistic non-fiction books.

Under this programme, grants can cover two types of costs:

1. Working time of the journalists to conduct their investigation.
2. Expenses:

• Direct investigation expenses such as travel, visa, accommodation, translation, fixers, access to pay-databases, freedom of information (FOI) requests, legal screening, insurance.

Please note we encourage you to travel less and instead team up with your colleagues in that area. Collaborating with other journalists who already work on the ground, have the know-how and knowledge, can significantly reduce your carbon footprint and save money, as well as your time.

• Development and support costs, if they have a clear and direct benefit for the specific investigation:
  • Costs covering team members’ participation in trainings and conferences, to gain or strengthen skills needed for the investigation and/or to meet experts and colleagues to discuss their supported research.
  • Costs for tools necessary for the investigation (e.g. datasets, satellite imagery, but no hardware).
• (post-)Production costs — such as editing and visual editing, sound design&graphics, website creation, or color grading – are eligible up to €1,000.

The following expenses cannot be covered by this grant programme:

• overhead (administration, coordinators, managers, financial officers etc.),
• tangible investments: goods such as IT hardware, mobile phones, cameras, or other types of equipment,
• food and beverage,
• per diems.

Applications need to include a budget calculation according to the budget template.

Please read the instructions tab in the budget template carefully.

If you have received or plan to apply for any co-financing, please indicate the amount and the source in your application.

• For this grant programme there are 2 application rounds scheduled over a period of one year. Subscribe to Journalismfund Europe’s newsletter to stay tuned and receive the latest grant opportunity updates.
• 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.

The jury assesses the applications based on the following criteria:

• The investigation focuses on an Belgian issue (underreported/of significant scale/new consequences or data is available for the topic),
• How novel is the theme or the angle proposed,
• Strength of investigative aspects and components,
• How plausible it is to verify the investigation hypotheses using the proposed methodology,
• Whether the findings would have added value compared to mainstream coverage,
• How feasible it is to carry out the investigation as proposed,
• Experience of the applicants (including where they are based and have worked, which languages they speak, which issues they had previously worked on),
• How strong is the collaboration aspect,
• Networking between parties, pooling research capacity and knowledge,
• Whether this investigation contributes to journalism's function as watchdog of institutions, policies, money,
• How clearly the team identifies their audience and whether a good engagement strategy is proposed,
• Quality and rationality of the budget,
• Reasonable travel,
• Necessity of (co-)funding.

Finally, the jury will also take into consideration the variety within the selection of granted projects for that round. This means the jury will seek diversity between the chosen projects. 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 decides independently about the granting of the submitted project proposals, based on the assessment criteria and the available budget for each round determined by Journalismfund Europe.
• 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.

• 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 euro. Respective amounts can be paid out only on the bank accounts of the grantees, not via other money transfer services. Each grantee should receive their part of grant separately on their respective account. Any bank charges for international payments are carried by Journalismfund Europe, except for exchange rates.
• 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 and approval of the financial report and supporting documents.
• 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 Europe’s general grant rules.

Consult our FAQ or contact us.