Google News Initiatives Innovation Challenge in Europe

• Eligibility criteria:
  – Open to all types of news organizations, including freelancers and sole traders, that produce original journalism and whose projects focus on creating a more sustainable and diverse news ecosystem.
  – Primarily intended for news organizations with an editorial staff of 50 or fewer full time (FTE) journalists, including freelancers. However, publishers employing just more than 50 FTE journalists may be considered subject to Google’s discretion.
  – Open to news organizations that produce original journalism whose projects focus on innovation towards creating a more sustainable and diverse news ecosystem. National and local established publishers, online-only players, news startups, publisher consortia and local industry associations as well as freelancers and sole traders, are eligible to apply.
• Type of funding: Programmatic
• Target countries: Applicants must be based in Europe
• Application language: English

The Google News Initiative (GNI) is seeking applications for its Innovation Challenge which is a global program that empowers news organizations from around the world to demonstrate new thinking in digital journalism.

All ideas are welcome but they require all projects to have clear indicators showing the potential impact of the project from a user perspective and/or from a business perspective. Selected projects will also need to be delivered within one year.
They encourage innovative projects – focused on, but not limited to – these areas: to increase reader engagement and/or reader revenue, developing and diversifying business models, new methods of distribution, combating misinformation, increasing trust in journalism, reaching new audiences, improving the efficiency of workflows, exploring new technologies.

Google will fund up to €150,000 for selected projects. Out of the total project budget, Google will finance up to 70% while at least 30% must be provided by the applicant. The self-funded portion may include operational costs. Eligible expenses include personnel costs, engineering costs and the purchase or licensing of any equipment, tools, hardware, software and other assets or materials needed for the project. Marketing expenses should not exceed 20% of the total amount of Google funding requested.

See here to learn more and apply.