The European Journalism Centre (EJC) has launched the Global Health Security Call to support up to 12 journalistic projects being delivered by individuals or teams of freelance and/or staff journalists on the topic of global health security.
Purpose: The 2023 Global Health Security Call is a programme that delivers grant funding and facilitates research opportunities to support in-depth journalistic analysis on the topic of global health security.
Mission: To incentivise and enable impactful journalistic coverage on global health issues, and create sustained relationships between freelance journalists and media organisations, as well as engage the public, key stakeholders and decision makers around the topic.
Vision: To inspire all opinion-forming media organisations in Europe to report on big health and policy challenges and solutions, and demonstrate the importance of journalism as a trusted, evidence-based means of communicating.
Objectives
Support: Identify and fund 12 journalists/ teams of journalists (freelancers and staff journalists) across France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway and Sweden that can efficiently execute and fully produce stories that:
reveal new information
focus on under-reported subjects/ concepts and/or focus on different angles of already-reported subjects/ concepts
focus on solutions rather than problems
highlight themes regarding equitable access and the importance of addressing such issues in low-income, lower-middle-income, and upper-middle-income countries (LMICs)
demonstrate good technical knowledge and evidence-based research
Connect: Help to broker constructive relationships between the funded journalists and with relevant external stakeholders and experts, in order to enhance their participation in the Call, help them to successfully publish their stories, and demonstrate the benefits of collaboration for health reporting.
Inspire: Demonstrate the business case for media organisations to work with freelance journalists on health reporting, to encourage other organisations to adopt this approach.
Secure ongoing investment for health-focused, solutions-driven collaborative journalism in Europe, in order to create ongoing positive outcomes for citizens.
Engage: Support at least 12 stories to be published within a three-month period that:
identify funding gaps related to the topic
help mobilise resources in the seven target countries
encourage resource commitment that helps less developed countries
raise awareness of the value of long-term investment in global health R&D, especially in relation to pandemic preparedness, equitable access, and manufacturing capacity building.
Funding Information
The Call will provide grants of up to USD$8,500 per project and is aimed at journalists publishing stories in opinion-forming media organisations across France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway and Sweden.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants that meet the following criteria are eligible to apply to the Call:
Applicants must be freelance or permanently employed individual journalists (staff journalists), or small teams of journalists, and should be experienced in reporting on the topic of health, science, development and/or policy
There is no citizenship, nationality or residence/ location restriction on the applicants.
Applicants should have a track record of publication in respected media outlets in one or more of the following countries: France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway or Sweden.
Freelance applicants should be signed up to a press regulator, trust initiative, or part of a press association.
Applicants must have a bank account that accepts international payments.
Ineligible
Applicants must not:
be state funded/ be from state-funded media organisations. For the purpose of this Call, state-funded refers to the direct funding of public service media organisations (whether state-owned or a private non-profits)
be state controlled/ be from state-controlled entities. For the purpose of this Call, state-controlled refers to editorial control by a government, which takes direct forms (e.g. through editorial guidelines or ownership structures) or indirect forms (e.g. state-controlled advertising revenue)
be from a news aggregator.
be a freelancer or from a media organisation that publishes content solely via a messaging service and/or social media platforms.
be a freelancer or from a media organisation that is not a publisher of their own original journalism.
be directly funded by, directed by, financially invested in by or affiliated with a political party or political activist group, religious or church group or diocese.
discriminate based on race, gender, faith, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability.
