CFAs: Environmental Investigative Journalism Grant Programme

This grant can be awarded to cross-border teams of professional journalists and/or news outlets to conduct investigations into environmental affairs related to Europe (all the countries, not only the EU). The resulting stories must be published in at least two outlets in two different countries, at least one must be a European media.

Next to investigations of environmental issues that transcend borders, this programme can also support and stimulate investigations that compare local environmental issues and policies between two or more regions or cities. The grants can also offer support to preliminary work in the development of new investigative projects. The grant can cover working time and expenses such as logistics, travel, insurance, access to legal support, translations, access to technology and data sets, etc.

Funding Information

• The total available amount per call to be distributed among all supported investigations will be around €400,000. The total budget is €1,600,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• Cross-border teams of at least two journalists and/or news outlets can submit a proposal for a journalistic investigation about an issue that concerns the environment — environmental protection, destruction, biodiversity, impact of climate change on the nature, etc.
• Only applicants who are legally residing/registered in at least two different countries are permitted to receive funding.
• The applicants must be professional journalists or registered media companies.
• Personal references and/or links to earlier work are essential.
• News outlets must be legal entities officially incorporated at least 12 months prior to the application deadline.
• The investigation proposal must concern cross-border environmental investigative journalism on European affairs — in or outside Europe. This means that the investigation has (also) to be of relevance for Europe.
• Next to investigations into environmental issues that transcend borders, this grant can also support comparative investigations into local environmental issues and policies between two or more countries, regions or cities.
• The result of the investigation must be published by at least two professional news outlets in at least two different countries, one of which must be in Europe. Letters of intent for publication from at least two professional news outlets are required.
• 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.

Assessment Criteria

• The jury assesses the applications based on the following criteria:
  • The investigation focuses on an environmental 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 cross-border aspect,
  • Networking between countries, 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 (they advise you to avoid unnecessary flying or travel in general),
  • Necessity of (co-)funding.

For more information, visit Journalismfund Europe.