IMPACT AWARD 2025

Celebrating cross-border investigative journalism in Europe

Nominations open on February, 24

Deadline: April 27, 2025 at 23:59 CET

The IJ4EU Impact Award celebrates Europe’s top cross-border investigative journalism with a total prize pool of €15,000. Managed by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), this high-profile award highlights the power of collaboration in uncovering the truth.

Each year, an expert jury selects three groundbreaking investigations to win €5,000 each, with the winners revealed at the IJ4EU UNCOVERED Conference in the autumn. Do you think your team’s investigation has what it takes? Submit your project securely via our Good Grants platform. Be sure to check the eligibility details, application guidelines and our FAQ section to get started.

General eligibility

  • The award will be open to cross-border investigations published via any credible medium (e.g. print, broadcast television or radio, online, documentary film, multimedia etc.).
  • Nominated investigations must have been published between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024.
  • Nominated investigations must involve journalists based in at least two European countries that have signed up to the full cross-sectoral strand of the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme, which provides core funding for IJ4EU.
  • Nominated investigations need to highlight issues of common interest for European countries, and be seen to have strengthened European media.
  • Nominated investigations may have been published in any language. However, for investigations not published in English, a translation in English of the core investigation/summary must be provided.
  • Nominations must include any significant challenge to the honesty, accuracy or fairness of an entry, such as published letters, corrections, retractions as well as responses by the relevant newspaper or website.

Application requirements

The IJ4EU Impact Award nomination process aims to be simple, secure and efficient.

All nominations must be submitted in English via the online Good Grants platform. Award Force is a free-to-use secure platform for submission and storage. It is ISO/IEC 27001 certified and GDPR compliant, and has multi-factor authentication, encrypted data, multi-tier backups and a secure multi-server architecture in VPC.

Each person making a nomination needs to create a personal user account to ensure that the application can be submitted securely and so as not to jeopardise the proposed investigation or those involved. The nomination form can be saved and is accessible until the nomination is completed and ready for submission. Once the application is submitted, it can no longer be edited.

Only nominations in English received via the Good Grants platform by the stated date and time will be considered. You will receive an email confirmation of your submission.

Brevity in supplying the information requested will be appreciated.

Nominations for the IJ4EU Impact Award must include:

  • Name of the person nominating the project
  • Nominee contact details
  • Country where the nominee is based
  • Full names of all the members of the team, with countries they are based in and their contact details
  • The title of the project or story (in English)
  • Publication type (e.g. print, broadcast TV, broadcast radio, online, documentary film, multimedia)
  • Link to the publication
  • The name of the outlet(s) in which the project or story was first published
  • Information about the main publishing outlet(s)
  • Names of other media and platforms in which the story has been published
  • A brief summary of the project (the core findings of the investigation)
  • Summary of the impact of the project (e.g. change in policies and structures; changes in public debate; mentions in political debates, hearings, other news outlets, books, articles etc., overall outreach…)
  • A summary of any critical responses following publication of the project
  • A list of any references to the project in books, reports, newspapers, academic papers etc (maximum six links)
  • A list of any references to the project in books, reports, papers etc.
  • A brief description of any obstacles faced by the nominee in carrying out the work (e.g. legal challenges or security issues)
  • An estimate of how long it took to carry out the project
  • A brief explanation of why the proposer thinks the investigation deserves this award

The following supporting information is required:

  • Evidence of any impact that the story/project has had
  • Links to the project or pdfs of published material
  • Copies of any significant criticism of the project that led to corrections, retractions or responses by the media outlet/s
  • Letters or quotes from qualified third persons underlining the quality of the project

Selection process

While the jury will be fully independent in its decision-making, it will be provided with a set of criteria to guide the process. The jury’s decision should take into account, but will not be limited to, the following:

  • Impact of the nominated investigation
  • Journalistic quality of the nominated investigation
  • Innovative use of cross-border journalism to cover a topic of public interest
  • Newsworthiness / added value of the nominated investigation to public discourse in the EU
  • Storytelling techniques
  • The potential of the nominated investigation to inspire similar cross-border journalism and contribute to the sustainability of investigative journalism in the EU

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony taking place during IJ4EU’s annual UNCOVERED Conference in September 2025.

Do you have questions about nominating your project for the IJ4EU Impact Award or the other IJ4EU grants to fund your cross-border investigation?

Find the answers to your questions here

For further questions, remarks, and suggestions, feel free to contact us at impact-award@ecpmf.eu.

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