Europe’s leading prize for cross-border investigative journalism invites entries for work published in 2025.
Nominations are open for the 2026 edition of the IJ4EU Impact Award, an annual prize recognising outstanding cross-border investigative journalism in Europe.
The award, managed by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) on behalf of the IJ4EU fund, honours investigative teams whose reporting has demonstrated significant impact, journalistic rigour and effective transnational collaboration.
An independent jury will select three equal winners, each receiving a €5,000 prize. The winners will be announced in September 2026 at the IJ4EU UNCOVERED Conference, a flagship gathering of Europe’s investigative journalism community.
The deadline for nominations is April 23, 2026 at 23:59 CEST.
Eligibility criteria
The award is open to cross-border investigations first published between January 1 and December 31, 2025 in any credible medium, including print, broadcast television or radio, online outlets, documentary film, multimedia formats and podcasts.
To qualify, investigations must:
- Involve journalists based in at least two European countries that participate in the full cross-sectoral strand of the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme, which provides core funding for IJ4EU.
- Address issues of common interest across European countries and contribute to strengthening European media.
- Be published in any language. Entries not published in English must include an English translation of the core investigation or a summary.
- Disclose any significant challenges to the honesty, accuracy or fairness of the work, including published letters, corrections, retractions or formal responses.
How to nominate
Nominations must be submitted in English via IJ4EU’s secure, free-to-use online submission system. The platform is ISO/IEC 27001-certified and GDPR-compliant, with multi-factor authentication and encrypted data storage.
Each nominator must create a personal user account. Applications can be saved and edited until final submission. Once submitted, entries cannot be modified. Only nominations received via the platform by the deadline will be considered. Applicants will receive email confirmation of submission.
Required information includes:
- Contact details of the nominator and the lead nominee
- Title of the project in English and date of first publication
- Publication type and link to the work
- Summaries of the investigation’s findings, methodology and cross-border dimension
- Details of obstacles encountered during reporting
- Names, countries and contact details of all team members
- Outlets of first publication and subsequent republication
- Evidence and description of impact, including political, institutional or structural outcomes, reactions, awards and recognition
- A statement explaining why the investigation merits the award
- Any critical responses following publication
Supporting documentation must include evidence of impact, links or PDFs of published material, and copies of significant criticism that led to corrections or responses.
Evaluation process
All eligible nominations will undergo a structured pre-evaluation coordinated by ECPMF and carried out in collaboration with students enrolled in the Bachelor’s programme in Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University.
Using a defined set of assessment criteria, this process will produce a substantiated shortlist of 10 investigations, which will be submitted to an independent jury as a reference for its deliberations.
The pre-evaluation will assess international scope and measurable impact, including political or institutional change, influence within the journalistic community, audience engagement and recognition.
The jury will retain full independence and may select winners from the shortlist or from any other eligible nominations. In making its decision, the jury will consider impact, journalistic quality, innovative cross-border collaboration, added value to public discourse in the European Union, storytelling techniques and the potential to inspire similar reporting.
Nominations close at 23:59 CEST on April 23, 2026.
For more information, see the awards section of the IJ4EU site. See also frequently asked questions.
For enquiries about the IJ4EU Impact Award, contact: [email protected].