2014-08-28
BRUSSELS – Journalismfund.eu has obtained funding to give special support by theme. For the call on September 15th we are thus able to allocate an additional €20,000 to carry out cross-border journalism about EU spending.
‘Follow the money’ has been one of journalism’s mottos for decades. The European Union spends more than €140 billion a year — a lot of money to follow. Teams of journalists who want to follow EU money in cross-border teams can now apply for a special research grant from Journalismfund.eu.
Controlling taxpayers’ money is a classic journalistic task and tracing potential abuse of the European funds falls within this field. The European Parliament has considered the role of investigative journalism in the field and in 2012 passed a report about The Deterrence of Fraud with EU funds through Investigative Journalism.
Until now Journalismfund.eu has supported any research that combined European, investigative and cross-border journalism regardless of the subject. We will continue to do that. However, with the special allocation we have been able to start experimenting with calls that further include a special theme. We thus asked our International Advisory Board members for their opinion on themes of major importance. Investigations into EU spending came out as the top priority.
The call for applications on September 15th thus offers two pools of grant money: the general research grant pool, holding €30,000 for cross-border European journalism regardless of the theme, and the special research grant pool for cross-border journalism on EU spending, holding an additional €20,000.
The application procedure for a special working grant is the same as for regular working grants. You only have to tick the box 'Special call working grant' instead of 'Regular cross-border working grant'.
Your story does not fit into neither the general cross-border journalism research grant nor the special call? See our compilation of other research grants.
