Innovation Fund for Multimedia Journalism

All qualified media professionals working in Switzerland who take on socially relevant topics, back them up with scientific expertise and form a team with in-house or external designers and programmers are eligible to apply - regardless of whether they are freelancers or part of an editorial team. The key criterion is the open access publication of the multimedia contributions in a Swiss online/print media outlet that potentially reaches the general public via its own channels. 

The Innovation Fund grants are two-stage and provide funding to kick-start (1st phase) and scale up (2nd phase) new multimedia narrative formats. We recommend that media projects requiring a high level of research first submit an application to JournaFONDS. The funding budget of the Innovation Fund covers the labour costs of the team members as well as the production costs. The media editors are expected to contribute financially, in particular to the programming and IT costs. 

With an initial funding (1st phase) of around CHF 20,000, journalistic contributions are supported that 

• address socially relevant (everyday) topics, back them with scientific expertise and potentially reach a broad audience through open access publication in a Swiss online and possibly print medium; 
• contribute to structurally anchoring multimedia formats due to the binding commitment of the editorial offices, e.g. by institutionalising cross-team collaboration; 
• achieve an impact that can be measured quantitatively (i.e. page views, engaged minutes, average reading time, possibly ratings); 
• consider mobile and social media formats as well as modularisation in terms of in-depth options from the outset; 
• preferably combine analysis, criticism and categorisation with the presentation of constructive solutions («solution journalism»). 

Additional scaling contributions (2nd phase) of up to CHF 100,000 will support multimedia formats that have been successfully pilot-tested and can be sustainably implemented. The prerequisite is that the editorial offices contribute at least 50% of the scaling costs. 

Applications for pilot and scaling projects can be submitted quarterly via the web portal using the relevant form (2-3 pages) by the Gebert Rüf Stiftung submission deadlines (1 February, 1 May, 1 September, 1 December). Please refer to the guidelines for submitting a project application and contact the programme manager Marco Vencato before submitting your project.

Applications will be reviewed by an independent evaluation panel consisting of recognised experts in Swiss journalism, namely Alexandra Stark, Angelika Jacobs, Mehdi Atmani and Thomas Häusler. The final funding decision for initial funding is usually communicated within one month of the project submission; for scaling contributions, the evaluation and decision-making process takes three months. 

David Bauer and Sabrina Weiss (editors), «Klima-Kipppunkte» (Republik): The project makes the complex and important topic of tipping points in the climate system accessible in a simple way: video-based, adapted to the audience's prior knowledge, entertaining and memorable (German). 

Dr. Marco Vencato, Program Manager, Mobile +41 76 542 60 73, marco.notexisting@nodomain.comvencato@grstiftung.notexisting@nodomain.comch