Journalism Science Alliance - call 2

The Journalism Science Alliance (JSA) is a programme co-funded by the EU's Creative Europe Programme. JSA delivers grant funding, training, mentoring and networking to drive the production of local, regional, and transnational investigative journalism backed by science, and enhance cross-sectoral collaboration between journalism and research institutions. Supported by training and mentorship provided by JSA, journalists and scientists will work together to uncover new topics of public interest that will reach and engage (new) audiences for investigative journalism, while serving public interest across Europe.

The Journalism Science Alliance is managed by a consortium led by NOVA University Lisbon, in partnership with the European Journalism Centre (EJC).

Eligibility to apply

The grants will be open to:

1. Collaborations involving at least one media outlet and one research/academic organisation working on an investigation on a topic of public interest, such as climate change, healthcare, emerging technologies, local governance, etc. The list of examples is not exhaustive.
2. Organisations need to be based in one or more countries that have signed up to the full cross-sectoral strand of the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme, which provides core funding for the JSA.

Eligible countries include all 27 EU member states and the following non-EU countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia and Ukraine.

1. The lead applicant is always a media outlet. The application should be submitted by a journalist associated with that media outlet who will act as the team lead. This can also be a freelancer, as long as they are supported by a media outlet.
2. Individual journalists and/or scientists can be part of the applying teams as long as there are at least two organisations already involved in the application (1 media and 1 research organisation), but they cannot be lead applicant.
3. Media, journalists, scientists, and/or research organisations from outside of the Creative Europe participating countries will be able to be part of the applying teams, as long as these already include one media and one research entity that satisfy the eligibility criteria.

Grant funding may be used to cover any costs necessary for the development, completion and publication of the research and production of journalistic content, including salary and human resource costs, research-related costs, translation and travel costs. The only exception applies to equipment (hardware) costs, which are not eligible.

We are now launching the second Call within this programme. We are allocating approximately one million euro for supporting the second round of journalistic projects. Teams can apply for grants of 10,000 euro, 20,000 euro or 50,000 euro, depending on the scope of their project, the complexity of the proposed investigations, the number of partners involved, the nature of the associated tasks and the tentative timeline.

Selection process and timeline

The selection of successful applications is done by an independent jury made up of distinguished journalists and scientists.

Successful applicants will be notified about the outcome of their application as soon as the independent jury makes its decision. Given the expected high volume of applications, the Consortium reserves the right to not provide individual feedback to unsuccessful applicants.

Grants are awarded for a period of 8 months. All funded projects must be finalised no later than the date specified in the grant agreement.

Dates (subject to change) Activity

19 January 2026 Call for Applications opens

5 February 2026 (11.00 CET) AMA Session I

5 March 2026 (11.00 CET) AMA Session II

23 March 2026 (17:00 CET) Call for Applications closes

April 2026 (date tbd) Judging of applications, shortlisting and due diligence checks

May 2026 (date tbd) Notification winners, signing of agreements, initial grant payments

June 2026 - January 2027 Grant period

November 2026 Interim report grantees

February 2027 Final report grantees

All information on this call can be found at Journalism Science Alliance.