European Research Council Call for Proposals: Science Journalism Initiative

The European Research Council (ERC) is calling for proposals for the Science Journalism Initiative.

The ERC wishes to support an organisation or a consortium of organisations to set up a funding scheme that would facilitate 3-5-month stays of journalists at research institutions. The purpose is to give the journalists opportunities to learn and work on in-depth reporting projects by immersing themselves in the research environment and interacting with scientists and scholars. Such opportunities – organised for example in collaboration with ERC host institutions and in ERC grantees’ teams and labs – should facilitate better understanding of frontier research, while respecting journalistic independence.

Programme details:

The holder of this coordination and support action grant would be expected to, among others:

1. design the support programme that addresses the aforementioned goals, advances the set objective and respects the principle of editorial independence of journalists,
2. set up a high-level media advisory committee to ensure the credibility and independence of the programme vis-a-vis journalists’ community,
3. prepare conditions to carry out the actions, especially establish relations with ERC grantees and host institutions’ press offices to make sure the fellowships and placements are well organised and useful both to the journalists and to researchers,
4. launch calls for applications or proposals for fellowships or placements potentially using the Financial support to third parties (FSTP),
5. evaluate the proposals based on the criteria of excellence and impact, ensuring balance in terms of topics covered by the participating journalists, geographical distribution of host institutions, and gender of the participants,
6. provide funding to journalists or researchers,
7. organise meetings, networking opportunities for the participating journalists and researchers,
8. monitor the implementation of the programme, and report to the ERC on the performance of the programme.

Eligibility:

• Researchers may be of any nationality.
• Researchers should intend to conduct their research activity in any EU Member State or Associated Country.
• Principal Investigators may be of any age and nationality, and may reside in any country in the world at the time of the application. 

Funding:

• Maximum duration of the project will be 48 months
• Funding amount of EUR 1 500 000.
• allows for financial support to third parties (FSTP)

Read more here

Application deadline December 15, 2022.