IPI’s call for applications to the 2025 New Media Incubator is now closed. We thank everyone who took the time to apply. We have enjoyed learning about your organizations’ work and the application project ideas. The IPI Media Innovation team cannot wait to kick off the New Media Incubator this July!
This year, we received a record number of 156 applications from media organizations in 26 countries across Europe: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, The Netherlands, and Ukraine.
The applications highlight important trends about media entrepreneurship in 2025. Many of them are building models to serve local and hyperlocal audiences, pursuing inclusivity in their journalism, doing journalism to combat mis- and disinformation, integrating AI into their business, and building direct relationships with the audience, with an overarching emphasis on experimentation in non-profit business models.
What’s next?
The New Media Incubator, led by IPI as a part of Media Innovation Europe, offers an eight-month programme supporting startups and new media ventures. Already in its second edition, the Incubator offers funding, personalized advisory services, training, tools and guidance. The programme will help the selected organizations identify market needs, discover new opportunities and build sustainable and creative news products shaping the media market today and tomorrow.
In the next stage, the New Media Incubator jury will carefully review each submission and select up to 12 projects to participate in the programme. All applicants will be informed of the results by the beginning of July. A public announcement of successful newsrooms will be made at a later date.
Selected newsrooms will benefit from up to €15,000 in grants, along with one-on-one needs assessment, training, individual coaching, and access to IPI’s networking and funding opportunities. The curriculum is uniquely designed to help the participants in designing, launching and growing their organization and product.
This year’s cohort will also have an opportunity to attend the IPI World Congress and Media Innovation Festival, taking place on October 23-25 in Vienna.
How it went: New Media Incubator 2023
New Media Incubator: Lessons and inspiration from media innovation across Europe
The format is based on IPI’s innovation and product development practice, refined in the first iteration of the New Media Incubator programme in 2023. In the first run, 10 publishers from all over Europe joined a six-month programme, achieving impressive results – increasing newsletter subscribers and social media following, launching new products and deepening engagement with their audiences, while gaining skills and confidence that will help them on the path ahead.
The New Media Incubator is made possible with support from the European Union.
