RFAs: Professional Development Grants for Environmental Journalism (Europe)

It seeks to promote collective development to build the capacities of environmental investigative journalists, by providing funding to project ideas from organisations and institutions for training and professional development programmes, i.e. skills-focused professional training or fellowship programmes targeting investigative journalists to upskill their capacities to report on environment related issues.

Funding Information

• The total budget for 2025 is €252,000.
• The total available amount per call to be distributed among all supported projects will be around €84,000.

Eligible Costs

• Personnel and operating costs that meet the following cumulative conditions:
  • Directly attributable to the project
  • Arise during the project period and after the signing of the grant agreement with Journalismfund Europe
  • Necessary for carrying out the project
  • Effectively incurred by the grant beneficiary, identified and verifiable
  • Not funded by other donors or support programmes

Ineligible Costs

• Personnel and operating costs not directly attributable to the project
• Internal rental costs (rental to oneself – as owner – of premises or other infrastructure)
• Overhead costs
• Meal costs, food and beverages
• Tangible investment goods (e.g. IT equipment or personal protective equipment)
• Recoverable VAT

Eligibility Criteria

• This grant programme is open to legal entities (organisations, companies, …) officially incorporated at least one year before the application deadline of the grant call and with demonstrable expertise in investigative journalism, environmental issues, and/or the development of supporting services.
• Eligible proposals entail enabling activities and supporting services for environmental investigative journalism in Europe. These can be training and professional development programmes, or other activities, services or tools that enable investigative journalists to upskill with regards to reporting on environmental issues.
• The project should be clearly defined and limited in time. The grant cannot be used for core funding or for financing permanent operations of an organisation.
• Individuals (natural persons) cannot apply for this grant.
• If the project is a collaboration between several organisations, one organisation should apply for the Journalismfund Europe grant.

Assessment Criteria

• Track record and relevance of the partners involved
• Feasibility
• Complementarity and added value to existing and already supported enabling activities for investigative environmental journalism in Europe
• Quality and realism of budget plan
• Necessity of (co-)funding
• Finally, the jury will also take into consideration the variety within the global selection of granted projects. This means diversity in terms of:
  • Forms
  • Topics
  • Methods and approaches
  • Regions

For more information, visit Journalismfund Europe.