The European Journalism Centre
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Maastricht, 17 November 2016
The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is proud to announce the winners of the eighth round of the Innovation in Development Reporting (IDR) Grant Programme. A combined total of more than €245,000 will be awarded to thirteen journalistic projects that advance development reporting and bring innovative storytelling on global development to a wider public.
The final winners were selected during a meeting of the IDR Grant Programme Advisory Council, consisting of senior international journalists. The projects that are eligible for funding will be greenlighted upon signature of a legal contract.
The awarded projects have received endorsement from significant media outlets located in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and many other countries. The winning projects touch upon multiple development issues, such as challenges faced by children in Central African Republic; European development funds spent on migration programmes in Africa; the impact of “low-fee” schools in Africa; the large-scale use of drones in Africa; the role of women garment workers in the economic and social stability of Bangladesh.
The winners were chosen because of their solid story ideas and innovative multi-platform approaches, operating on the crossroads between investigative, data-driven and visual journalism. To convey complex development stories in engaging ways, the winning projects will make use of web-documentaries, graphic journalism, 360 degrees videos, virtual reality, etc. In addition, the Advisory Council applauded the synergy between the proposed formats of many applicants, as this strengthens the impact of their stories on the audience.
The winners will join a boot camp training on 11-13 December, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where they will meet fellow grantees and learn from top-level media practitioners. They will work on the development of their stories, learn about leveraging multimedia storytelling techniques and develop publication strategies aimed at achieving the best possible public impact. As part of the programme, the winners will also attend the News Impact Summit “
Emotions and Digital Storytelling” organised by the European Journalism Centre in cooperation with the Google News Lab.
The eighth call for applications ran between 3 March 2016 and 7 September 2016. In total, 166 applications were received.
Here are the winning projects.
In 2017-2018, the EJC will
award over €1.6 million in funding for innovative development journalism projects. To this end, the EJC will run another special funding
round for media outlets as well as four calls for applications centred on specific international development topics.
Journalists and media organisations interested in breaking away from development journalism stereotypes are encouraged to pitch us their creative ideas in the upcoming ninth round of applications.
The deadline to apply is 15 February 2017 (22:00 CET). Applications are accepted on issues related to gender equality (SDG5).
Interested journalists can pitch story ideas free of charge at
this online application form.
Funding will be up to €20.000 per grant and will cover direct expenses for journalistic research and study trips, possible technical costs for crews and equipment, data acquisition and analysis, visualisation, etc. Interested candidates may apply for full or partial grants, excluding, however, salaries of permanent staff. More detailed information on the application procedure, deadlines, and the aims of the project can be found at
www.journalismgrants.org.
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Note to editors:
The Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme was
launched in January 2013 by the EJC with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project aims to reward quality journalism and advance a new and distinctive agenda for development coverage through awarding funding to a selection of state-of-the-art reporting projects of great impact and high visibility. Since 2013 the programme granted funding to 100 projects.
In 2015 the EJC
launched a special edition of the IDR grant programme aimed at supporting long term global development coverage. Four major European news organisations (Spiegel Online, Welt/N24, Dagens Nyheter, De Correspondent) were each
awarded grants worth €150.000.
In 2016 the EJC
launched another special edition: the “Global Health Journalism Grant Programme for Germany”. This edition aims to advance a better coverage of international health, health policy and development related issues by supporting the production of stories that have a strong impact on media audiences in Germany.
The IDR Grant Programme has received $1,848,000 for the period of 2017 and 2018 that will be awarded to innovative journalistic projects centred on global development topics. In 2017 the programme will run two rounds of applications and organise two boot camp style trainings tailor-made for the winners of each round.
The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is a non-profit international foundation with the remit to improve, strengthen, and underpin journalism and the news media. This mission has two main aspects: On the one hand, it is about safeguarding, enhancing, and future-proofing quality journalism in Europe and on the other hand, it is about supporting initiatives towards press freedom in emerging and developing countries. This often includes creating the framework conditions for independent and self-determined journalism in the first place. To these ends, the EJC provides thematic training, professional capacity development, and a wide range of support activities for journalists.
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