Category: News and Events

As part of our ongoing commitment to fostering journalistic collaboration and knowledge exchange between regions, we are pleased to launch the 2025 cycle of our Travel & Reporting Grants Programme.

This programme offers a unique chance to embark on a reporting assignment, backed by financial support, editorial guidance, and on-the-ground assistance in countries where BIRN has established offices: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro.

We encourage journalists with a strong interest in the Balkans to apply and produce impactful stories for audiences in their home countries. Selected stories may also be featured on BIRN’s Reporting Democracy platform and in leading media outlets across the region.

We welcome pitches for a variety of journalistic formats, including analysis, investigative pieces, feature stories and interviews. Cross-border reporting, serialised stories and multimedia outputs such as video, photography, radio or podcast content are also strongly encouraged.

Who Can Apply?

We invite applications from journalists based in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Applications are welcome from:

• Individual journalists, whether affiliated with a newsroom or working as freelancers
• Teams that may include reporters, editors, producers, videographers or photographers
• Media outlets with an interest in cross-border or international reporting

A maximum of ten (10) grants will be awarded during this call.

Grant Amount

Each successful applicant will receive 2,500 euros to support the production of high-quality, original journalism.

Important Dates:

Application Deadline: July 10, 2025, by 23:59 CET

Project Completion Deadline: February 2026

Each applicant may submit only one application per grant cycle.

What Should the Application Include?

To be considered, your application should include the following:

Topic Overview: A clear description of your proposed story idea and why it is relevant.

Balkan Fieldwork Plan: An outline of your planned reporting trip(s) to one or more Balkan countries, including a rough timeline.

Publishing Strategy: A distribution plan explaining where and how you intend to publish or broadcast your story.

Eligible Costs Covered by the Grant:

• Professional fees
• Travel and transport expenses
• Accommodation
• Daily allowances during fieldwork
• Production costs (e.g., fixers, translation, photo/video services, etc.)

How to Apply

To submit your application, please complete the online application form available at this LINK. At the start of the form, you’ll be asked to choose whether you are applying as an individual journalist/team or as a media outlet — the relevant version of the form will then open automatically based on your selection.

All applications must be submitted in English.

Please ensure that your responses are clear and thorough, as we will only follow up if essential information is missing and prevents an objective evaluation.

The deadline for applications is July 10, 2025.

If you have any questions or need assistance during the application process, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We’re here to help.

Evaluation Process

Step 1: Technical Review

BIRN staff will conduct a technical check to confirm all required documents have been submitted correctly.

Step 2: Editorial Evaluation

An editorial board will assess applications that pass the technical review based on the story idea’s originality, feasibility, and potential impact.

Step 3: Notification of Results

All applicants will be notified of the outcome. Successful applicants will be informed by August 5, 2025.

We look forward to receiving your proposals and supporting your work in producing compelling journalism that bridges regions and tells important stories across borders.

On June 3 and 4, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Goethe-Institute.V. organised the event “Empowering Public Service Media for Greater Citizen Engagement and Cross-Border Collaboration”. The event was also hosted by RTCG, Montenegro’s public broadcaster.

This initiative brought together media professionals from public broadcasters in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, providing practical tools and strategies to foster stronger connections with audiences and to collaborate across borders on shared issues.

“Audience engagement is a concept we at BIRN have been implementing over the past three years. We developed a digital tool that is now successfully used by more than 50 media outlets across the Western Balkans and Visegrad countries – a tool through which award-winning stories have been produced,” Vuk Maras, BIRN Montenegro’s Director, said.

Gentiana Murati, BIRN’s Deputy Director, presented the scheme for the content production grants, which are available for public broadcasters.

The training aimed to address pressing challenges, such as declining viewership and rising mistrust, and harness new opportunities for meaningful public engagement.

“At RTCG, we believe in innovation that serves the public good, and we are proud to host initiatives like this that bring together regional partners to learn from each other and work towards stronger, more trusted journalism across the Western Balkans,” Boris Raonic, RTCG’s Director General, said.

During the training, participants explored participatory journalism methods, innovative audience formats, and successful case studies from the region and beyond.

Boris Raonic and Georgia Trismpioti

“At a time when public trust and audience engagement are more important than ever, public service media must evolve – not just to inform, but to listen, include, and co-create with their communities,” said Georgia Trismpioti, Regional Team Leader for the “Innovation. Media. Minds” Programme.

“We know the challenges – shrinking audiences, rising mistrust – but we also know that innovation and collaboration can open new doors. This training is a chance to explore tools, share experiences, and develop ideas that can travel across borders,” she added.

This event is part of the “Innovation. Media. Minds Programme: Support to Public Service Journalism in the Western Balkans”, funded by the European Union and managed by the Goethe-Institut on behalf of the European Commission and in collaboration with its implementing partner, DW Akademie.

It is also part of the EU-funded project “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Türkiye II”, which BIRN and seven other partners implement. It aims to provide systemic support to improve quality and professionalism in journalism in the Western Balkans and Türkiye.

Before Perparim started to work as a journalist at several media outlets in Kosovo, he studied political science at the University of Prishtina. Explaining how he imagined his career when he studied, he says:

“They are not far away from each other. Studies have been done on the juncture and disjuncture between political sciences and journalism, and when I look at them, I see that both sides have their points. However, I kept my determination to stick to my passion with journalism, despite sporadic attractions elsewhere.”

Speaking of that, he worked as a Press Assistant at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, maintaining contacts with the Kosovo media, but it was difficult for him to adjust to working with the press from that perspective.

“But it served as a good lesson for me. Before my experience with the OSCE, I often became upset with the press offices of different organisations, when my questions were not addressed properly or were ignored. I found a different reality, a complex machine, which means press officers often are unjustly criticized by journalists,” he says.

“Switching to the other side came as work for journalists started to become more and more difficult and unaffordable. I started with the OSCE exactly on the day when I turned 10 years in journalism,” he says.

And then, life had some other surprises for Perparim; he started working with BIRN.

“I knew it would be a challenge, and I was right. I came to BIRN in May 2014, and in the first six years worked as editor with BIRN Kosovo’s flagship news site Kallxo.com. Over the years, I used to contribute to Balkan Insight, so when the opportunity came to fully switch to Balkan Insight, I grabbed it with both hands. It came very naturally. I am under the same roof, I just changed the room,” he says.

In his own words, he would lie if he said his expectations had been to stay in BIRN for such a long time.

“Eleven years and counting! Since day one, working with BIRN has always been intriguing to me. Different countries, cultures, and even time zones. A different approach to the job compared to local newsrooms in our geographical area is something I would have missed if I had not experienced it in my career,” he says.

Every journalist has their favourite and least favourite topics. Living and reporting from a country with an enduring political and security crisis, Perparim’s career has been dominated by current affairs stories, be they news, analysis, features, or interviews.

“When I need a fresh restart, I happily switch to culture stories. They are refreshing to me and offer me the chance to be more creative. Yes, it is the light stories I would want to re-read, when I am no longer in this job,” he says.

As in any other profession, journalism has its ups and downs. In Perparim’s view, they are intertwined.

“Your day starts from scratch. No matter how well you did the day before, today you have a new day ahead, which demands your full availability. And as the day goes by, you feel the best part of the job is when you switch off, with concrete results from your work – until the next morning.”

Perparim also mentors young journalists on the Media Innovation Europe project that BIRN implements.

“I have a feeling that both I as mentor and the journalists I mentor cherish it. It is always exciting to get the perspective of a young journalist. It takes me back to my old self, when I was in need of a more experienced journalist, an editor, to guide me throughout the work.”

Working with different editors in the past helped him shape himself as a person, a journalist, and now as an editor. He understands well what young journalists find hard in their profession nowadays.

“So many things have changed. In our region, young local journalists face more difficulties than before because the market is no longer the same. But when I work with them, I see their eagerness to prove themselves outside their usual boundaries,” he says.

And for any young person striving to become a journalist in the region, he has a clear message.

“Be resilient! It is common in our region to feel neglected, but just try to see who wants to make you feel that way. There will always be a powerful person or government who will try to threaten or even tempt you, just to prevent you from doing the job properly. There will always be someone who does not want your article to get across. Remember that many before us had it far more difficult, and succeeded through their resilience.”

Speaking of finishing his professional career, he explains: “Did the time come to think about it? I don’t see it coming in the future, but when the day comes, I will have many things to reflect upon. As the saying goes, once a journalist, always a journalist.”

One passion will occupy his attention and time – reading.

“When that day comes, besides my family duties, I am already planning the reading list. I recently came across an expression: Tsundoku. It is about a person who buys books but piles them up and waits for another time to read them. My pile of books of all sorts is already waiting on the shelves.”

BIRN participated in the POINT 13 conference held on May 29-30, 2025, in Sarajevo, which brought together key participants from civil society, journalism, technology and activism, focusing on digital security and infrastructure for journalists, activists and civil society organisations in the Western Balkans.

On the first day, Azra Milić, Digital Rights Programme Coordinator at BIRN Hub, moderated the panel session “Digital Security and Infrastructure for Activists, Media and CSOs in the Western Balkans”. The discussion focused on the increasing challenges in protecting freedom of speech, privacy and security in the digital environment. The panelists were Nikola Ristić, activist and co-founder of OG Sviće, Andrijana Ristić, a researcher from the Share Foundation, and Michael J Oghia from the Journalism Cloud Alliance. Two of the speakers were directly targeted in smear campaigns by the Serbian tabloid Informer due to their participation in the conference.

Nikola Ristić, in addition to being targeted because of his participation at the conference, had previously been a victim of digital surveillance, including the hacking of his phone by the Serbian Intelligence Agency (BIA) and the release of footage from security cameras at Belgrade airport to the tabloids. He noted the importance of protecting privacy and data, highlighting basic measures like strong passwords and selecting the right devices.

“You need to understand the infrastructure you use. For instance, those little keys you get at POINT Conferences to secure your data and passwords – they’re simple, but important. And yes, it matters who manufactures your phone,” he said.

In the discussion about the challenges faced by civil society organisations, it was pointed out that attacks on individuals often lead to broader attacks on the organisations themselves. Andrijana Ristić, who was also target of smear campaign last week, noted that while there is a growing focus on digital security, more attention needs to be paid to data privacy, which is often overlooked.

“Right now, it feels like the focus is overwhelmingly on security — but we need to think more about protecting our privacy too,” she warned.

Another key issue raised was the importance of secure cloud services for journalists, especially those working on investigative reporting and data analysis. Michael J Oghia stressed the significance of these tools, speaking about a project launched last year at the International Journalism Conference in Perugia. The project aims to bring together members and partners from various sectors with the goal of making cloud services more secure, accessible, and sustainable, which would help reduce costs.

The POINT 13 conference served as an important platform for exchanging experiences and solutions. Speakers agreed that progress in digital security and privacy protection is essential, as well as building the infrastructure that enables secure work in the digital environment, free from the fear of attacks, censorship, or violence.

First prize of €3,000 was awarded to Zuza Nazaruk, a journalist from Poland currently based in the Netherlands, for her compelling story on the escalating crisis in the Białowieża Forest. The story examines how this UNESCO World Heritage site is being transformed into a militarised zone, where environmental degradation, heightened military presence, and migration converge. Through vivid reporting, Nazaruk reveals how thousands of migrants and soldiers are clashing in a forest once celebrated for its rich biodiversity, now caught in the crossfire of geopolitical tensions.

Jury member, and a correspondent for the Austrian daily, Der Standard, Adelheid Wölfl said: “Zuza Nazaruk shows the impact of geopolitical battles on the vulnerable and abused. She sheds light on those invisible in the thicket and portrays colourfully parts of our nature: plants, animals, and humans. She not only shows how much money and effort is spent in today’s Europe on preventing migration, but also the impact this has on our ecosystem. Zuza Nazaruk proves that we need journalism that gives a voice to those we cannot hear, and simultaneously safeguards something we all need: dignity.”

The second award of €2,000 went to Greek journalists Ioanna Louloudi and Paschalina Kapetaniou for their investigation into the Greek state’s repeated failure to accept responsibility and deliver justice to victims of police brutality, accidents, and disasters. Despite existing laws that mandate state compensation, the authorities frequently appeal rulings and prolong legal proceedings, forcing citizens into years-long battles for recognition and redress. Their story highlights the frustration and mistrust that this persistent denial of accountability fosters among the public.

“It is a Kafkaesque story, which happens now, in a democracy, where paradoxically the state fights against its citizens. It is a story about a human battle for dignity and civil rights,” said the jury member and Director of the Albanian Media Institute, Remzi Lani.

The third award of €1,000 went to Zuzana Vlasata from the Czech Republic for her story about a toxic leak on a Czech river. Her report shows how a factory linked to former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš should have been a prime suspect over the incident, but evaded official scrutiny. Jury member and editor at Bellingcat, Gyula Csák, said: “Zuzana Vlasata’s powerful and engaging investigative piece demonstrates state capture and systemic failure through the story of a factory accident in the Czech Republic.”

The ceremony marked the conclusion of the 2023 edition of the Fellowship.

In addition to jury members Adelheid Wölfl, Remzi Lani and Gyula Csák, this year’s panel included Milorad Ivanović, representing the FJE alumni network; Florian Hassel, Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung; Elena Panagiotidis, editor at the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung; and Kristof Bender, deputy chairman of the European Stability Initiative.

With the end of this year’s programme, seven fellows join the FJE alumni network – consisting of more than 150 journalists from 14 Central and Eastern European countries who promote the highest standards of professional journalism.

Launched in 2007, the Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence is now in its eighteenth year. The programme fosters professional growth, cross-border cooperation, and in-depth reporting on key issues across central, eastern and south-eastern Europe. Each year, ten fellows receive financial and editorial support to develop long-form stories on complex regional and European topics.

The Fellowship is implemented by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and supported by ERSTE Foundation.