Introduction: The European news media sectors play a crucial and valuable role in Europe. However, they face multiple challenges, including the digital shift, which has led to economic pressures on professional journalism. This call aims to support the economic sustainability of news media through cross-border collaborations.

General Description: This call focuses on fostering media transformation, trustworthy reporting, and skills development for news media professionals. It supports collaborative projects that enhance cooperation, help media adapt to new economic and consumption realities, and instill systemic change across the sector.

Objectives:

• Increase innovation and creativity in business models, journalistic production processes, and distribution processes.
• Enhance the viability of professionally produced journalistic content.
• Foster media collaboration and create sector-wide networks for the exchange of best practices.
• Improve professional skills of journalists and media business professionals.

Activities that can be funded

This topic seeks to help the wider European news media sector become more sustainable and resilient, including small media. Support is foreseen for collaborative projects in and between any news media (sub)sector and/or genre that aim to enhance cooperation, help media adapt to new economic and consumption realities and instil systemic change across that (sub)sector.

Activities can include events, online trainings and workshops for media professionals, exchange programmes, mentoring schemes, mapping of best practices, sector-wide development of technical standards, development of guidelines and editorial standards, production of practical guidebooks, development and testing of platforms and technical solutions to exchange ideas and best practices, promotional activities, or other activities that aim to uphold the viability of the sector. Sharing of best practices between operators in media markets/countries/regions with different and diverse characteristics (in terms of languages, production volumes, sizes, digitalisation levels etc.) is encouraged, to promote mutual learning. Applicants are encouraged to consider activities supporting media sectors lacking the means of adapting to the digital environment.

Financial support to third parties will be accepted in projects which foresee exchange programmes for journalists and other media professionals, support to attend trainings or events, support to journalists and media outlets for collaborative journalistic projects, support for legal advice, support for the acquisition, development or maintenance of technical tools for collaborative journalism, support for events in these fields and/or prizes for collaboration or innovation. In such cases, applicants must define the terms under which this financial support to third parties would take place and ensure a fair and transparent process.

In all cases, the choice of activities should be based on their potential to instil systemic change in the chosen subsector.

Eligibility

Eligible Participants (Eligible Countries):

• Applications will only be considered eligible if their content corresponds wholly (or at least in part) to the topic description for which they are submitted.
• Applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies) established in one of the eligible countries:
  • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories).
  • Non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated with the Creative Europe Programme.
• Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least three applicants (beneficiaries, not affiliated entities) from at least three different eligible countries.
• Consortia may include non-profit, public, and private media outlets, as well as other organizations focusing on news media.

Eligible Activities:

• Eligible activities are those set out in section 2 "Activities that can be funded (scope)".
• Financial support to third parties is allowed for grants and prizes under certain conditions:
  • The calls must be open, published widely, and conform to EU standards concerning transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest, and confidentiality.
  • The calls must remain open for at least two months.
  • The outcome of the call must be published on the participants' websites, including a description of the selected projects, award dates, project durations, and final recipient legal names and countries.
  • The calls must have a clear European dimension.

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