Grow your media, faster

• Up to €20,000 to deliver your project. 
• One month of personalized needs assessments to identify your challenge, problem statement and roadmap solutions. 
• Intensive training focused on tools and skills that can be transferred to your newsroom well beyond the duration of the accelerator, focused on problem-solving and identifying solutions, audience research, strategic planning and product management, journalism formats built for user engagement, digital business models and diversifying revenue models.
• One-on-one personalized advisory services bespoke to the needs of your newsroom, with flexible, on-demand industry experts as coaches during the accelerator.
• Access to a networking platform with the current cohort, expert coaches, all programme alumni and a network of media innovators.
• Access to an e-learning platform with training modules and recordings from industry leaders. Monthly “Ask-Me-Anything” sessions allow attendees to directly pose questions to industry experts.
• Group coaching sessions with peers developing similar projects.
• Speaker sessions are based on themes determined in the needs assessments.
• 3-day, in-person bootcamp in Vienna with 2-3 members from each media in the accelerator.

• Applicants must be a media organization based in one of the following countries: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, and Ukraine.
• Your organization must be an established media (digital and legacy) investing in research, growth and development, that has a clear and defined understanding of the challenge it seeks to address
• Your media organization is independent from political or business interests, is consumer-facing, and investing in an audience-centric concept or product for news gathering, creating or distributing journalistic work, and monetisation; or innovation in your media’s business model that will help make the company sustainable, competitive and of value to its community and European media landscape.  
• You must submit a plan that identifies the specific challenge you want to resolve, the target audience you serve, the logic of your approach and the articulation of a clear and well-defined understanding of the problem you are seeking to solve.
• Your organization should have recently conducted audience research or other market testing activities and be able to establish this in your application. 
• Your media should demonstrate a willingness to undertake audience research and find ways to serve new audiences, and explore and implement new ideas, tools and technologies to enhance storytelling and audience engagement, while learning from experts and each other.
• You will be asked to describe your vision of success with metrics to measure against, including a plan for sustainability once the project period is completed and the resources needed to implement the project. (Note: it is anticipated that this project will change or evolve during the accelerator period).
• You will be asked to compile a budget for using the funds granted through the accelerator programme, describing the financial resources you will need for your project to succeed (e.g. technology costs, web development, human resources, costs required to reach audiences)
• You should have a commitment to quality, independent journalism that serves the public interest, and a track record of this.
• Your media should have a clear vision for the future of their organization, including plans for how they will grow, expand and/or adapt.
• You should have the capacity to carry out the innovations you will identify, the support of senior management for the digital transition and the time to work through the accelerator programme to develop and implement lasting solutions.
• Your organization must have a team of at least two individuals who are willing to commit to accelerator activities throughout the eight months (this is estimated at a time commitment of four hours per week, divided between the team of two).
• You should have diversity in each transition leadership team, including representing different skill sets and parts of the media organization.

An independent, international jury will select the projects to participate in the accelerator. The jury will be made up of individuals with a deep understanding of innovation in independent newsrooms, particularly in Europe, including product directors, media managers, media founders and managing editors from different countries across Europe.

Any attempt by any donor or partner organization to interfere in the decisions of the jury will be immediately reported to the rest of the jury. Jury members will be required to declare any possible conflicts of interest, and will be asked to recuse themselves from any judgment where such conflicts may interfere with independence or the public perception of independence. These recusals will be recorded.

After jury selection, the selected teams will go through a process to check their proposed budget and project. The IPI project manager together with the coach assigned to the team will streamline the project and ensure its feasibility, including ensuring the implementation of any recommendations from the independent jury.

Successful projects will be asked to sign a contract with IPI.

Applicants to the Transition Accelerator can request grants up to €20,000. Selected projects will sign a grant agreement with IPI to receive the funds. The disbursement of funds will be made in three instalments:

• IPI will transfer to the recipient 60 percent of the Transition Accelerator grant amount upon signing this contract. 
• 25 percent of the grant amount will be transferred to the media upon presentation of the second project design review in the fourth month of the accelerator and verification of completion of all key activities set out in their governing framework. 
• The final 15 percent will be provided on the approval of a one-page narrative document measuring the success of their project over the eight-month accelerator, a review of how it contributed to the overall growth of their newsroom, and a review of how the grant was spent and what their newsroom’s future plans are.

The Transition Accelerator grant may be used to cover nearly any costs necessary for the production of their proposed project. This includes, but is not limited to, programmatic and operational costs (e.g., travel costs to the annual Media Innovation Festival), software, web development, human resources, research- and production-related costs, travel costs and translation costs. Hardware costs (e.g., computers and video cameras) are not eligible.

Note, that the submitted budget does not need to cover the travel and living costs for the in-person bootcamp in Vienna. The Bootcamp costs will be covered by the Transition Accelerator programme separately.