EMIF’s management committee has granted 16 projects a total amount of €4,681,913.48. The granted projects will work across 18 European countries, namely Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. With the projects already approved under Fact-Checking Call for Proposals (that add to this list Bulgaria, Latvia and France) this brings the current geographic scope of EMIF to 21 countries. 

The successful projects responded to the first EMIF calls across three priority areas with a 29 April 2022 deadline: “Multidisciplinary Investigations on Disinformation in Europe”, “Supporting Research into Media, Disinformation and Information Literacy Across Europe”, and “Media and Information Literacy for Citizens Empowerment”.  

Call “Multidisciplinary Investigations on Disinformation”

The total grant amount in “Multidisciplinary Investigations on Disinformation” adds up to €515,432.28. The 4 projects will focus on investigating disinformation in Europe and its origins through various methods. For example, in the Vrbetice Case Study, the European Values Center for Security Policy will use software to conduct an in-depth analysis of disinformation campaigns in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The International Press Institute’s project Decoding the Disinformation Playbook will use methods of investigative journalism and fact-checking. 

Call “Supporting Research into Media, Disinformation and Information Literacy Across Europe”

The four projects under this Call for Proposals will receive €1,419,917.78. The projects use different approaches, from developing intelligence tools and using AI (Artificial Intelligence) to detect disinformation, to studying the impact of disinformation in different European countries. Their common goal is to better analyse and understand disinformation trends in Europe and work on developing tools to help other stakeholders fight disinformation.  

Call “Media and Information Literacy for Citizens Empowerment”

Within this round of EMIF’s Calls for Proposals, the media and information literacy projects represent a majority in terms of number and grant allocations: eight projects receive a total of €2,746,925.61. Most of these projects target students and educators to empower them to become critical thinkers when they are exposed to the media. These projects adopt distinct approaches that better suit their contexts and target audiences. Some projects are empowering and supporting teachers in educating their students about disinformation. Other projects are adopting a gamified approach to educate on disinformation with online games, escape rooms, and micro-learning techniques, all working on improving the media literacy skills of the students. 

Future Calls 

The ongoing third funding round of the Call “Boosting Fact-Checking Activities in Europe” is open until 31 October 2022. The next Calls for Proposals for the Multidisciplinary Investigations on Disinformation, Research, and Media Literacy focus areas will be launched in January 2023.