Contest rules
1 - Price
Union Is Strength (UIS) is a European journalism contest that aims to promote collaboration between journalists within the European Union (EU) and coverage of the actions of the EU.
The purpose of the Prize is to reward the work of 20 teams of journalists, each composed of a French journalist and a journalist from another EU country.
Each selected team will win 1 500 euros (per team) to write two articles about two EU projects, one in France and one in another EU State.
The 20 selected teams will have their work published on Slate.fr and in a partner media from another EU country.
2 - Teams
The contest is open to young journalists aged 30 at most, with or without press card.
Each team must be composed of a French journalist and a journalist from another EU country.
The online forum Union Is Strength will make it easier for these journalists to create teams.
3 - Topic
Each team will submit two pitches, that should not exceed 1500 characters (250 words) each, regarding projects funded by the EU’s cohesion policy: the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Cohesion Fund (CF), the European Social Fund (ESF) and especially the Just Transition Fund and the Recovery Plan in key sectors –innovation, ecology, digital, social, citizenship.
One of the pitches must be about a project carried out in France and the other one about a project carried out in another EU country.
The prize will reward the originality and attractiveness of the chosen angles. They must be meaningful and shed a concrete and human light on the initiatives supported by the European Union.
4 - Jury
The jury will be composed of Slate.fr staff and leading personalities from French journalism.
The members of the jury will debate to select the 20 teams that will be awarded 1500 euros for writing and illustrating their articles.
The deliberations will take place in January 2022.
5 - Applications
Applications are open until 23:59 (Paris time) on 17th January 2022.
Each team must submit:
- A summary of each topic in French or English that should not exceed 1500 characters (250 words) each
- A provisional budget for each story
- The CV of each member with the following information: postal address, e-mail address, phone number, date of birth
- Copy of a valid ID for each member
6 - Writing and publishing
Each team will have to write two articles: one, written in French, that will focus on an initiative developed in France, and another one that will focus on a project developed in the non-French team member’s country, that will be written in the official language of this country, while respecting the full editorial independence of the actors involved.
The articles will be edited and translated into English by Slate.fr, then published between April and August 2022 in the UIS section planned for the occasion.
