Europe’s MediaLab (ex Fondation EURACTIV) is a think-and-do-tank developing quality projects fostering the media sector’s innovation and skills, and organising policy conferences, training programmes and workshops. Europe’s MediaLab is the Stars4Media Project Initiator.
THINK – Media Policy: We can demonstrate a strong track record with news media cooperating across borders, and deep industry insights. We support a proactive EU media policy to rebalance the information ecosystem and reinforce the financial sustainability of the news media.
DO – Training and Innovation: In the past 15 years, we have trained about 1,000 media professionals, involving cross-border media cooperation
Bio
MédiaLab initiated several Stars4media programmes, on innovation with VUB, WAN-IFRA, EJC and EFJ, and on fact-checking with Comenius University and Euractiv affiliates in the East. Altogether: 32 media are helped, from 16 countries.
Mr Leclercq was on the EU’s High-Level Expert Group on disinformation, and is now on the Advisory Council of EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory). Before his media career, he was strategy consultant with McKinsey and then EU competition official.
Also a commentator on media policy and strategy, Mr Leclercq wrote several opinion articles in French and English, often co-signed with European stakeholders and policy leaders, and addressed high-level events.
Bio
Stars4Media started in 2019 as a pilot project implemented by a Consortium of four partners: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) – the project coordinator; Europe’s MediaLab (ex Fondation EURACTIV) – the project initiator; the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). The first two editions of Stars4Media were co-funded by the European Commission (grant agreement number: LC-01590082).
The third edition of the programme, Stars4Media NEWS, is implemented between 2022 – 2024 in cooperation with European Journalism Centre (EJC), and co-funded by the European Union (project number 101054041)
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is the Stars4Media Programme Coordinator. VUB is a competitive, high-quality, socially committed and internationally oriented university located in Brussels, Belgium.
The implementation of the Stars4Media programme is mainly supported by the specialized research centre on Studies, Media, Innovation and Technology (SMIT). The Research Group SMIT was established at the VUB in 1990 and is specialized in social scientific research on media and ICT. Support for the implementation of the physical mobility and virtual cooperation is provided by VUB’s International Relations and Mobility Office (IRMO).
The World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) is based in Paris and is an “association loi 1901”, a non for profit organization under French law. The association gained formal consultative status to UNESCO in 1949, to the UN in the spring of 1950, and to the Council of Europe in 1974.
WAN-IFRA represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries. The main mission of the association is to protect the rights of journalists around the world to operate free media and provide our members with professional services to help their business prosper in a digital world and perform their crucial role in open societies.
The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is an international non-profit headquartered in the Netherlands, working to support, strengthen and develop journalism.
Our mission is to strengthen the resilience of European journalism and progressive media by connecting journalists and media to new ideas, nurturing communities, making available a wide range of unique experiences, providing grants and skills development, and producing resources and training affordable or for free. Our aim is that every journalist and news organisation shall benefit from an EJC programme or initiative.
