Apply for a 2025 Climate Arena Fellowship

Do you have a cross-border and investigative climate story? Are you eager to work with others on your project in a team setting? If so, apply for our Climate Arena 2025 fellowship!

Successful applicants will receive mentoring, financial support and two opportunities to meet with your cohort, including at this year’s Climate Arena conference in Budapest.

The deadline for applications is midnight (CET) on 23 June.

Who can apply?

To be eligible for a Climate Arena Fellowship,

Your story must:

  • Be related to climate or the environment
  • Be an investigative or data-related project (or both)
  • Involve more than one country, at least one of which is from the 46 member states of the Council of Europe
  • Be your original idea and not generated by AI

You must be:

  • An early- or mid-career journalist
  • From one of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe
  • Free to travel between 11-14 September and 9-12 October 2025

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.

We particularly encourage applications from journalists underrepresented in the European media industry.

We will select 12 fellows after the deadline of 23 June.

A group of early to mid career journalists posing for a photo on the steps of a small building. They are the Climate Arena Fellows from 2024.
Climate Arena 2024 fellows during our Bologna conference

Where will I travel?

The 2025 cohort will attend a 2-day meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, 12-13 September where you will learn more about collaborative working and about each other. On 10-11 October you will attend the Climate Arena Conference in Budapest, Hungary.

Arena will cover travel, accommodation, and visa expenses (if needed) for both trips. At these events you will workshop your ideas, collaborating with your cohort to form teams and pursue viable cross-border stories.

After the Climate Arena conference you will receive mentoring and training, as well as skills-sharing among the cohort, as you work on your story.

About the Climate Arena conference

Climate Arena is organised by us, Arena for Journalism in Europe, an open-access hub set up by and for journalists. We encourage cross-border cooperation and the exchange of skills and methods.

To learn more about the conference, fellowship, and other practicalities visit Climate Arena’s Frequently Asked Questions page.

The 2025 Budapest fellows will be our fourth cohort. Over the years, our fellows published impactful stories and they’ve become a part of a supportive community of climate reporters across Europe. We’d love for you to join them. Apply now! We are excited to meet you. 

Do you want to read more about the fellowships and hear from previous fellows? Then go here.