Nominations are now open for the fifth annual IJ4EU Impact Award. If you’ve seen an exceptional example of cross-border investigative journalism over the past year, now is the time to shine a light on it.
Run by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), a partner in the IJ4EU consortium, the award celebrates investigative teams that uncovered groundbreaking stories that transcend borders in 2024. Three winning teams will each receive €5,000 in recognition of their work.
The deadline for nominations is 27 April 2025 at 23:59 CET.
Nominate now
The winners will be revealed at a special ceremony during UNCOVERED 2025, the annual conference of IJ4EU, taking place in September 2025.
In 2024, the award celebrated investigative teams behind The Pylos Shipwreck: Reconstruction of a Catastrophe, Story Killers, and The Border Graves Investigation. A special commendation was also given to Suspicion Machines.
This year, we are eager to see which investigations have made a lasting impact.
Who can nominate?
Anyone can submit a nomination, including journalists nominating their own work. Nominated investigations do not need to have been supported by the IJ4EU fund.
To be eligible, the investigation must:
- Be a cross-border project involving journalists from at least two European countries that are part of the EU Creative Europe Programme (27 EU member states plus Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, and Ukraine).
- Have been published between 1 January and 31 December 2024 via a credible medium (print, online, TV, radio, documentary film, multimedia, etc.).
- Address issues of public interest relevant across European borders.
- Be available in any language, provided a summary or translation in English is included in the nomination form.
- Disclose any corrections, retractions, or challenges to accuracy.
A pre-evaluation process at the University of Leipzig in spring 2025 will assess nominated investigations, with a focus on the real-world impact of the reporting.
An independent jury will then select three equal winners. Each winning team will receive €5,000.
For further details, check out the IJ4EU Impact Award page or visit our FAQ section. Have a question? Feel free to reach out to [email protected].