**This grant, mentoring and scholarships programme aims at addressing the shortage of local independent journalism by administering grants to local investigative journalistic projects in Europe and stimulating cross-border collaboration.**

  
This programme will:

  
* Stimulate local journalists and (small) news outlets to conduct investigative journalism and learn from colleagues in other countries, creating a European network of local (investigative) journalists in the long run.
* Stimulate local journalists and news outlets to compare with other regions and cities in other countries that face similar problems or challenges, which are eminently European issues.
* Increase the dissemination, reach and impact of local investigative journalism.

  
The grant programme will be open for **teams of local investigative journalists and/or local media outlets** from at least two different European countries who have good ideas for a local cross-border investigation. For example: journalists and/or news outlets from different comparable cities investigate how their cities cope with e.g. housing, waste, tourism, mobility, etc.

  
The project should be one that, in principle, could not be realised in this format within the remit of regular journalism – a project that can include cross-border research, networking between colleagues, established and **innovative investigative methods** and that is at the same time original, innovative and intensive.

In 2024 the total grant budget is €475,000 to distribute over four application rounds (€118,750 per call).

For the period 2024-2025, the programme is co-funded by The European Union, Limelight Foundation, and Vereniging Veronica.

  
A grant can cover two types of costs:

1. **Working time** of the journalists to conduct their investigation. (**_please note: working time will need to be substantiated with a timesheet_**)
2. **Expenses**:
* Direct investigation expenses such as travel, visa, accommodation, translation, fixers, access to pay-databases, freedom of information (FOI) requests, legal screening, insurance, etc., ...
* Following expenses **cannot** be covered by the grants: overhead, office costs, investments goods (such as IT hardware, mobile phones, cameras, software …), production costs, recoverable VAT, food and beverage, per diems.
* Grantees must minimize unnecessary travel, particularly air travel. Our policy is to only make essential trips and to champion alternative ways of collaborating with others. This saves time and money, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions (that contribute to global heating). We ask that our grantees do the same for the work that we fund and report to us on the air travel they make.
* The grant can only cover costs for _research_, not for production.

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