Applications open for the 2026 Cross-Border Reporting Fellowships

GENEVA — The IAOIJ today opened applications for its 2026 Cross-Border Reporting Fellowships, the Association’s flagship grants programme for member journalists. This year’s round will fund up to twenty investigations, with individual grants of up to $25,000 awarded on the basis of the story’s public-interest value, its cross-border dimension and the practical plan behind it.

The fellowships are designed for the reporting that too often does not happen: investigations that require months of work, records from several countries, specialist data skills or travel that no single newsroom can easily fund. Since the programme began, the IAOIJ has awarded more than $4.2m across 210 grants, seeding projects that went on to freeze illicit assets, trigger prosecutions and change laws.

“A grant is not just money — it is permission to be ambitious,” said Rahul Sharma, the IAOIJ’s Director of Programmes. “Every year we meet reporters sitting on extraordinary leads who simply cannot afford to chase them. These fellowships exist to remove that barrier, and to pair reporters with the data, legal and security support that turns a lead into a published investigation.”

Who can apply

Applications are open to IAOIJ members in good standing, working individually or in cross-border teams. Newsrooms may apply on behalf of staff or freelance contributors. Priority goes to proposals with a clear cross-border element, a realistic reporting plan, and a public-interest story that would struggle to find funding elsewhere. Early-career reporters and journalists working in under-resourced regions are strongly encouraged to apply, and a portion of the fellowships is reserved for them.

What the grant funds

Fellowship funds can cover reporting costs including travel, document and records access, data analysis, translation, fact-checking, secure equipment and a stipend for the reporter’s time. Every fellow also receives non-financial support from the Association: editorial guidance from the Cross-Border Desk, pre-publication legal review, digital-security training, and help finding trusted collaborators in the member directory.

Past fellowships have underpinned some of the network’s most consequential work, from tracing illicit financial flows across half a dozen jurisdictions to documenting environmental harm that regulators had missed. The strongest applications, the jury notes, tend to share three things: a specific, well-sourced question rather than a broad theme; a clear reason the story crosses borders; and a realistic budget and timeline that show the reporting can actually be finished. Applicants are encouraged to be concrete about the records they will seek and the risks they anticipate.

Recipients will be selected by an independent jury of editors and past fellows, with decisions announced in December 2026 and reporting beginning in early 2027. Full eligibility rules, selection criteria and the online application form are on the grants page. Members with questions before applying can write to the programmes team at any time.