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Call key data
Collaborations
Funding Program
Creative Europe - Cross-Sectoral Strand
Call number
CREA-CROSS-2025-JOURPART-COLLABORATIONS
deadlines
Opening
24.10.2024
Deadline
27.02.2025 17:00
Funding rate
80%
Call budget
€ 5,266,270.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
max. € 2,000,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
This topic aims to support the economical sustainability of news media. It supports cross-border media collaborations focusing, among other aspects, on the resilience of news media organisations. This support shall foster media transformation, trustworthy reporting and skills for news media professionals, for instance by developing new business models and media production standards.
Call objectives
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.
Projects must focus on ways to develop collaborative transformation, from a business, technological and/or production point of view.
Projects can aim to develop, inter alia, better revenue and monetisation models, new approaches to audience development, community-building and marketing, development of common professional/technical standards, new types of newsrooms, syndication networks or other models to exchange content/data between news media across the EU, or provide assistance to small media organisations. They can aim to increase efficiency and the quality of reporting through innovative journalistic collaborations. Projects can test innovative production methods and formats, or contribute to high-quality media production standards in other collaborative ways. Projects can aim to increase exchanges of best practices among journalists and optimise workflows for those journalism genres requiring more time and resources.
Proposals may address one or more of the priorities outlined above, if relevant and based on a needs analysis of the chosen (sub)sector. The proposal should provide this needs analysis and explain how the proposed activities will work towards addressing the identified challenges.
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Expected effects and impacts
- Increased innovation and creativity in business models, journalistic production processes and distribution processes;
- Increased viability of professionally produced journalistic content;
- Increased interest in professionally produced journalistic content, among various social groups, language groups and age groups;
- Increased media collaboration;
- Sector-wide networks for the exchange of best practices among news media organisations and professionals;
- Knowledge-hubs for sub-sectors around technical formats (written/online press, radio/podcasts, TV, etc.) and/or journalistic genres (data journalism, general topics, specialised journalism, etc.);
- Acquisition and improvement of professional skills by journalists as well as media business professionals.
Expected results
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.
Projects must include concrete deliverables and set clear, objectively verifiable and quantifiable performance indicators for the mid-term and the end of the project. The estimated impact must be more precise than the sum of available distribution channels, and should be substantiated by a detailed outreach plan as well as proof of interest from the target groups.
All projects need to respect widely accepted professional media standards. The chosen standards and the relevant mechanisms to ensure them should be indicated in the proposal and confirmed with a signed Declaration on Standards & Independence (Annexed to the Application form). Partnerships involving editorial work must operate with full editorial independence.
All Partnerships should consider the ecological footprint of the activities they propose, and where relevant, describe the strategies to ensure a more sustainable and environmentally respectful media sectors.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Albania (Shqipëria), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Liechtenstein, Montenegro (Црна Гора), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Ukraine (Україна)
eligible entities
Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established in one of the eligible countries i.e.:
- Creative Europe Participating Countries:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories)
- non-EU countries (listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme (list of participating countries)
- Creative Europe Participating Countries:
Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person.
International organisations — International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.
EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.
Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’ . Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible).
The host organisations of Creative Europe Desks are eligible as coordinator or beneficiary in open calls, if they have procedures to segregate the project management and the information provision functions and if they are able to demonstrate cost separation (i.e., that their project grants do not cover any costs which are covered by their other grant). This requires the following:
- use of analytical accounting which allows for a cost accounting management with cost allocation keys and cost accounting codes AND application of these keys and codes to identify and separate the costs (i.e., to allocate them to either one of the two grants)
- recording of all real costs incurred for the activities that are covered by the two grants (including the indirect costs)
- allocation of the costs in a way that leads to a fair, objective and realistic result.
Beneficiaries from countries with ongoing negotiations (see list above) may participate in the call and can sign grants if the negotiations are concluded before grant signature (with retroactive effect, if provided in the agreement).
other eligibility criteria
Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least three applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions:
- at least three independent entities from a minimum of three different eligible countries
Consortia may include non-profit, public and private media outlets (incl. written/online press, radio/podcasts, TV, etc) as well as other organisations focusing on news media (incl. media associations, NGOs, journalistic funds and training organisations focusing on media professionals, etc).
Financial support to third parties is allowed for grants and prizes under the following 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.
- 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 (topic 1) and which put in place funding schemes for news media entities and independent journalism (topic 2).
- Your project application must clearly specify why financial support to third parties is needed, how it will be managed and provide a list of the different types of activities for which a third party may receive financial support. The proposal must also clearly describe the results to be obtained.
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
project duration
24 months
Additional Information
Proposals must be submitted before the call deadline.
Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section. Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).
Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:
- Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
- Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
- Part C — contains additional project data and the project’s contribution to EU programme key performance indicators (to be filled in directly online)
- mandatory annexes and supporting documents (templates available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded):
- Declaration on Standards and Independence (from coordinator and all partners) (template available in the Submission System)
Page limit - part B: 70 pages
Call documents
CREA-CROSS-2025-JOURPART call documentCREA-CROSS-2025-JOURPART call document(874kB)
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