IJ4EU awards €165,000 to freelancers for cross-border investigations

The independent jury has selected 9 cross-border teams  to be supported in the second round of the IJ4EU Freelancer Support Scheme, which supports teams of journalists operating outside of newsroom structures.

Run by the European Journalism Centre, IJ4EU’s Freelancer Support 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 to 9 proposals. 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 team of three freelance journalists and researchers who will investigate whether the EU-funded voluntary returns of refugees from Greece and Bulgaria are really as 'safe, voluntary, and dignified' as advertised. €19,919.00
• Two freelance journalists from Romania and Bulgaria on the biodiversity impact of an early-stage energy project. €19,320.00
• Cross-border investigation between Italy and Romania that aims to reveal how legal labor migration pathways paradoxically generate irregularity and exploitation. The investigation will focus on the Romanian visa system that fuels clandestine migration of non-European workers to Italy. €18,900.00
• 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. €19,890.00
• Despite affecting millions of women across Europe, obstetric violence remains largely undocumented. Three freelance reporters set out to uncover how the absence of consent during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care impacts women in Poland, Romania, and Albania. €19,970.00
• A team of Italian freelance journalists based in Sicily, Spain and Ukraine will investigate the fate of the 2,000 Ukrainian orphans allegedly sent to southern EU countries through temporary reception programs to help them recover from war traumas and the EU foster families who initiated a flurry of lawsuits to keep them. €19,960.00
• Four freelance multimedia journalists will investigate a major conservation initiative in East Africa and its effects on local communities. €13,800.00
• A cross-border team tracking the global trade of a dangerous class of chemicals posing serious risks to the environment and human health. €18,600.00
• Three independent journalists will investigate the European markets profiting from products made in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. €15,000.00

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.