European Media and Information Fund provides support to organisations based in Europe with the objective of supporting fact-checking and media literacy initiatives, as well as research projects. EMIF’s strategy is supervised by EDMO, the European Digital Media Observatory. The Fund aims to address the phenomenon of online disinformation in Europe and promote a more resilient and fact-based digital information ecosystem. All the calls are open to universities, non-profit organisations, including public service media, universities, educational institutions etc in different roles (for more information about the specific call visit the dedicated call page).

There is currently one open call:

• • Boosting Fact-Checking Activities In Europe, with special urgent action for Ukraine – permanently open call

Total indicative allocation of the fund is €4 350 000. Applications may be submitted at any time and three funding rounds occur every year, in February, June and October. 

Responding to this urgent need, EMIF opened a Special Funding Round for Ukraine on 25 February. 

Having completed the evaluations, the EMIF will support two projects designed to increase the coverage, depth, and speed of fact-checking activities directly and indirectly related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The approved projects will focus on capacity building for fact-checking in Ukraine led by Agence France-Press (France) and reinforcing and amplifying reliable reporting on Ukraine led by Euractiv Media Network B.V. (Belgium).

Additionally, the 2^nd regular Funding Round of the “Boosting Fact-Checking Activities” call closed on 30 June with 13 proposals received from organisations based in nine countries: five submitted under priority “Urgent Actions” and eight under “Scale-Up”.  The total amount requested in this funding round was €795,931.47 for an allocation of €435.000.

Next Deadline to apply: 31 October 2022.

IJ4EU relaunches: €1.23M in grants for watchdog journalism in Europe

Back for a fourth edition, IJ4EU has secured core financing from the European Commission to continue its work fostering collaboration between European journalists as they tackle transnational subjects in the public interest.

During the 2022/23 edition, IJ4EU will disburse €1.23 million through two well-established grant schemes. Both Schemes will have two simultaneous calls for applications, one in September 2022 and one in January 2023.

IJ4EU Support Scheme provides financial support to cross-border journalistic teams

IJ4EU’s Investigation Support Scheme provides grants of between €5,000 and €50,000 to support cross-border investigative projects in Europe. The scheme will provide €900,000 in grants in 2022/23. It is managed by the International Press Institute (IPI).

There will be two calls for applications for the scheme, one in September 2022 and one in January 2023.

Deadline to apply:  13 October 2022

Second Bootcamp Call for EIC Supported Ventures One core element of the collaboration is allowing the most promising start-ups to easily move between selected EIT Health and EIC programmes without delay and therefore find the best support depending on their needs and opportunities.

Press and media councils and professional standards. Within the specific objective of promoting policy cooperation and innovative actions supporting all strands of the Programme, including the promotion of a diverse and pluralistic media environment, media literacy and social inclusion, the priorities of the cross-sectoral strand shall include to promote cross-sectoral activities aiming at adjusting to the structural changes faced by the media sector, including enhancing a free, diverse, and pluralistic media environment, quality journalism and media literacy including in the digital environment.

Deadline to apply: 20 September 2022 17:00:00 Brussels time

TV and online content. The objective of the support to TV and online content is to increase the capacity of audiovisual producers to develop and produce strong projects with significant potential to circulate throughout Europe and beyond, and to facilitate European and international co-productions within the television and online sector.

The action aims to strengthen the independence of producers in relation to broadcasters and digital platforms, to enhance collaboration between operators, including independent producers, broadcasters, digital platforms and sales agents, from different countries participating in the MEDIA Strand, in order to produce high quality programming aimed at wide international distribution and promoted to a wide audience including commercial exploitation in the multi-platform environment. Particular attention will be given to projects presenting innovative aspects in the content and in the financing that show a clear link with the envisaged distribution strategies.

Deadline to apply:

European media platforms

ERC Science Journalism Initiative (ERC-2023-SJI)

The ERC wishes to support an organisation or a consortium of organisations to set up a funding scheme that would facilitate 3-5-month stays of journalists at research institutions. The purpose is to give the journalists opportunities to learn and work on in-depth reporting projects by immersing themselves in the research environment and interacting with scientists and scholars. Such opportunities – organised for example in collaboration with ERC host institutions and in ERC grantees’ teams and labs – should facilitate better understanding of frontier research, while respecting journalistic independence.The holder of this coordination and support action grant would be expected to, among others:

1. design the support programme that addresses the aforementioned goals, advances the set objective and respects the principle of editorial independence of journalists,
2. set up a high-level media advisory committee to ensure the credibility and independence of the programme vis-a-vis journalists’ community,
3. prepare conditions to carry out the actions, especially establish relations with ERC grantees and host institutions’ press offices to make sure the fellowships and placements are well organised and useful both to the journalists and to researchers,
4. launch calls for applications or proposals for fellowships or placements potentially using the Financial support to third parties (FSTP),
5. evaluate the proposals based on the criteria of excellence and impact, ensuring balance in terms of topics covered by the participating journalists, geographical distribution of host institutions, and gender of the participants,
6. provide funding to journalists or researchers,
7. organise meetings, networking opportunities for the participating journalists and researchers,
8. monitor the implementation of the programme, and report to the ERC on the performance of the programme.

This ERC call allows for financial support to third parties (FSTP). Those applicants that foresee implementation of actions by providing FSTP must clearly describe the objectives of the action and the expected results, as well as meet the specific conditions on the use of FSTP as set out in the Model Grant Agreement (see Article 6.2.D.1 and Article 9 of the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement), and describe among others the conditions for submission, evaluation and selection of proposals of third parties.

The maximum duration of the project will be 48 months. One proposal will be selected.

Deadline to apply : 15 December 2022 17:00:00 Brussels time