Nine teams receive support in the latest round of the IJ4EU Freelancer Support Scheme.
An independent jury has selected nine cross-border teams under the latest call for applications to IJ4EU’s Freelancer Support Scheme, which provides grants and other assistance to teams of journalists operating outside of newsroom structures.
Run by the European Journalism Centre (EJC), the scheme is designed for teams composed predominantly of freelancers who collaborate on transnational investigations into topics of public interest in Europe and beyond. It offers funding, mentoring, training and networking opportunities.
The selected projects
The external jury awarded a total of €165,359 in grants to fund nine investigative projects. The successful teams involve 31 journalists based in 15 different countries.
Here are summaries of the successful investigations and the awarded amounts, in no particular order:
- A cross-border investigation by three freelance journalists and researchers into whether the EU-funded voluntary returns of refugees from Greece and Bulgaria are really as “safe, voluntary and dignified” as proclaimed – grant awarded: €19,919
- A cross-border investigation by two freelance journalists from Romania and Bulgaria on the impact on biodiversity of an early-stage energy project – €19,320
- A cross-border investigation spanning Italy and Romania into how legal labour migration pathways paradoxically generate irregularity and exploitation. The investigation will focus on how the Romanian visa system fuels the clandestine migration of non-European workers to Italy. – €18,900
- A cross-border team in Spain, Italy and Greece will investigate the scale and severity of gender-based violence against female migrant domestic workers in the EU. – €19,890
- Despite affecting millions of women across Europe, obstetric violence remains largely undocumented. Three freelance reporters will seek to uncover how the absence of consent during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care impacts women in Poland, Romania, and Albania. – €19,970
- A team of Italian freelance journalists based in Sicily, Spain and Ukraine will investigate the fate of 2,000 Ukrainian orphans allegedly sent to southern EU countries through temporary programmes to help them recover from war trauma and the EU foster families who initiated a flurry of lawsuits to keep them. – €19,960
- A cross-border team of four freelance multimedia journalists will investigate a major conservation initiative in East Africa and its effects on local communities. – €13,800
- A cross-border team will track the global trade of a dangerous class of chemicals posing serious risks to the environment and human health. – €18,600
- A team of three independent journalists will investigate the European markets profiting from products made in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. – €15,000
About the Freelancer Support Scheme
The Freelancer Support Scheme is one of two grant schemes offered by the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund, which supports cross-border, collaborative journalism in the European Union and beyond.
The Freelancer Support Scheme runs in parallel to the Investigation Support Scheme, managed by the International Press Institute.
Following the latest call for applications, a separate independent jury awarded almost €490,000 in funding to 14 cross-border reporting teams under the Investigation Support Scheme.
Interested in learning more about projects previously funded by IJ4EU? Check out the projects section on the IJ4EU site.