IJ4EU grantee Investigate Europe is using its €5,000 IJ4EU Impact Award prize to fund a new fellowship offering aspiring journalists from under-represented backgrounds paid experience in cross-border reporting.
The journalism cooperative has teamed up with the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) to establish the CIJ Investigate Europe Lyra McKee Fellowship. It will offer one or two part-time paid placements working alongside Investigate Europe’s reporters, according to a CIJ announcement.
Investigate Europe and its partners won a 2025 IJ4EU Impact Award for Deadly Prices, an investigation into unequal access to medicines across Europe. The series examined how opaque pricing arrangements and pharmaceutical industry practices put essential treatments beyond patients’ reach.
The fellowship is open exclusively to graduates of the CIJ’s Lyra McKee bursary scheme, which provides five months of training and mentoring to people seeking to enter journalism or taking their first steps in the profession.
The scheme honours the Northern Irish journalist who was shot dead in Derry in April 2019. The new partnership adds an opportunity for graduates to put their training into practice through paid investigative work. Depending on candidates’ ambitions and availability, the organisers plan to offer either one longer fellowship or two shorter placements.