Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence

Conference venue: Various (Balkan region)
Period: Apr. 2012 - Dec. 2012.
Deadline for submitting application: Mar. 5, 2012

The Balkan news media are increasingly required to report on complex reform issues with regional and European dimensions. Journalists, however, are under-prepared to tackle these, lacking resources for appropriate training and foreign travel.

To encourage regional networking among journalists and advance balanced coverage of topics that are central to the region as well as to the EU, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and ERSTE Foundation have initiated a fellowship programme in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN. 

Ten fellows from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia will be selected on the basis of applications submitted. The fellowship will run from April until December 2012 and three winners shall be selected during the final seminar held in late November.

Fellows are expected during this period to produce one in-depth journalistic article of no more than 2,000 words, based on the research proposal they submit. Editorial guidance and control shall be provided by BIRN. 

For this year's programme, applicants are encouraged to consider the annual theme, communities, in a broad sense. Candidates should examine different groupings - political, economic, national, gender, generational - and the relationship between them, external influences and the development of entirely new groups or factions.

Proposals should include plans for cross-border research in two countries in the Balkans and one EU member state. They should unearth fresh information that will attract a wide readership in the Balkans and the EU. Completed articles should be no more than 2,000 words in length.

All applications must be in English. The proposal for a fellowship reporting project must be submitted using the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence application form (which can be downloaded here). It must be accompanied by the signed declaration of the applicant.

In order to be properly assessed, all parts of the application form should be filled in as carefully and clearly as possible. Any additional information attached to the application must be clearly marked and included in the same e-mail in which the application is submitted.
 
Full information on the application process can be found on the fellowship website

Dragana Zarkovic Obradovic
Gospodar Jevremova 47
11 000 Belgrade, Serbia
tel.: 00381.11.32881.77 
e-mail: fellowship@birn.eu.com