IJ4EU Freelancer Support Scheme

• Eligibility: The desired entity must be teams composed entirely of freelance journalists
• Funding amount: Up to €20,000
• Type of funding: Programmatic
• Target countries: EU & UK
• Application language: English

Managed by the European Journalism Centre (EJC), the scheme is designed to support journalists operating outside of newsroom structures who may be underserved by other journalism support schemes and/or who are significantly impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, yet who are nonetheless willing and able to collaborate with others to launch investigations of importance to audiences at a local, national, regional and European level.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for the Freelancer Support Scheme, applications must be submitted by teams composed entirely of freelance journalists that meet the following criteria:

• They are based in at least two EU member states, or at least one EU member state and the UK
• They are collaborating on a topic of cross-border relevance,
• They are signed up to a press regulator, journalists’ union, trust initiative, or part of a press association, or they have current CVs/online portfolios that demonstrate relevant qualifications or a history of working with trusted news organisations.
• Third-country team members (including those based in an official EU candidate country) can be part of applying consortia, provided that the consortia already meet the above criteria.
• Applications must justify the relevance of the investigation to the public interest in the eligible countries targeted by the investigation, or to the broader European public sphere.
• Grant funding may be used to cover any costs necessary for the development, completion and publication of the investigation and production of journalistic content, including salary and human resource costs, research-related costs, translation and travel costs. The only exception applies to equipment (hardware) costs, which are not eligible.

Learn more and apply here.