Applications now open! Deadline: 23 June 2025
You can now apply to become an Arena Climate fellow and join our 2025 cohort. Fellowships are for those who have a cross-border climate story idea and are eager to work in a team setting. Your story idea could be investigative, data-related, or both but it should involve more than one country.
Arena is no longer offering working grants, but, if needed, will support you as you apply to larger investigative funding schemes open to European journalists.
The deadline for applications is midnight CET on 23 June 2025.
Who is eligible: Early- and mid-career journalists from 46 member states of Council of Europe whose primary occupation is journalism. Both staff journalists and freelancers are welcome to apply. This opportunity is not intended for researchers, academics, campaigners, or NGO workers.
We particularly encourage applications from journalists whose backgrounds are underrepresented in the European media.
What is the fellowship: If selected, firstly you will attend a 2-day meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, 12-13 September where you will learn more about collaborative working and about each other. After this, on 10-11 October you will attend the Climate Arena Conference in Budapest, Hungary. We will cover travel, accommodation, and visa expenses for both trips.
At these events you will workshop your ideas, working together to come up with workable, cross-border ideas, forming teams in pursuit of actual stories. After the conference you will be mentored and given training – including sharing skills with each other – as you work on your story.
We will select 12 fellows in total this year.
Two of these fellowships are specifically reserved for journalists who want to focus on topics related to land degradation, food and farming systems, with support provided by Commonland, a non-profit working on land restoration.
Do you want to read more about the fellowships and hear from previous fellows? Then go here.
Before you start your application, keep in mind that your pitch should:
- Be related to issues around climate and environment
- Be cross-border, involving at least two countries – one of which must be a member state of the Council of Europe. If you’re new to cross-border journalism, take a look at some examples here and here.
- Include your ideal headline for the proposed story
- Have enough details (not only “I want to investigate pesticides” but specifically what aspects you want to investigate, where, and why, including any specific connection you have to the story & sources, documents etc you have). You can be as vague or detailed as you want but it should give us a good understanding of what story you want to pursue
- Include why this story is important and why now
- Be your original idea and not generated by AI
