The Transition Accelerator is a six-month programme for established digital or legacy media outlets that plan to leverage innovation in their business to become more resilient in the face of increasing challenges. For example, a newsroom could pivot to membership through deeper audience engagement or want to invest in new content and distribution products by identifying user needs. Your team will leverage design-thinking innovation consulting to identify market needs, discover new opportunities and build solutions to enable digital transformation.

Activities and project support

• An introductory online meeting

• Two day in-person bootcamp

• Structured learning

• Prototype a new product

• 1:1 coaching

• Guest speakers

• Grants of up to €20,000 to implement project

General eligibility

Applicants must be based in one of the following countries: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine.

Newsrooms are welcome to apply if they have:

• a clearly identified challenge or problem they want to solve;

• a plan on how to address the problem or challenge they face;

• recently conducted audience research or other market testing activities;

• willingness and a plan to reach out to new audiences with quality content.

To apply, you must have a team of three staff members who declare that will participate through the accelerator’s duration of six months.

Application requirements

Each applicant team should designate a lead applicant from within the participating media outlet.

Applicants can save the application form by clicking “save” and return to it until they have completed it and are ready to submit. They will be emailed a link to their application which they can return to until 28 October 2022 [23:59] . Once the application is submitted, it can no longer be edited.

Only applications in English received via the Jotform 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.

Applicants must answer the following questions:

• Information about your organization

• Participating team members (at least two)

• Your organization’s mission and values

• Project title and elevator pitch

• List of project activities

• Definition of your target audience

• A list of financial resources you expect to need (if selected, you will submit a more detailed budget later)

• Definition of what success means for your project proposal

Selection criteria

• Demonstrate a deep understanding of the problem they seek to solve.

• Demonstrate a willingness to undertake audience research and find ways to serve new audiences.

• A vision of what success would look like with metrics to measure against.

• Commitment to quality independent journalism

• Capacity to implement the project

• Willingness to include diversity and gender equality

• Openness to journalism collaborations

Funding details

The Transition Accelerator funds may cover any percentage of a project’s costs, up to 100 percent of the total. Co-funding is encouraged but not mandatory. Teams must declare any existing sources of funding on their application.

Applicants to the Transition Accelerator can request grants between €5,000 and €20,000.

Selected projects will sign a grant agreement with IPI to receive the funds. The disbursement of funds will be made in two instalments:

• 60 percent of the grant amount upon signing of the grant agreement.

• 40 percent upon completion of the project and acceptance of a final narrative report and completion of agreed milestones (due by the end of month six the grant timetable).

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 Summit), salary and human resource costs for the participating team, research and data collection costs, and equipment essential to successful implementation of the project

Selection process and timeline

Applications will undergo an initial pre-screening to review basic application requirements and applicants may be asked during this phase to supply additional information. Applications that do not meet basic requirements will not be forwarded to the jury.

An independent 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, originating 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 on any judgment where such conflicts may interfere with independence or the public perception of independence. These recusals will be recorded.

Questions? Contact us here: innovation@ipi.media

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