Emergency Response - Microgrants for Ecosystem Development

The Microgrants for Ecosystem Development are designed to enable cross-border cooperation and exchange in order to help fact-checkers respond rapidly and effectively to disinformation in crisis events across Europe. This grants are the part of FACTEUR: Fact-Checkers for European Resilience Against Disinformation project implemented by The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) with seven partner organisations – Pagella Politica/ Facta, Faktograf, Newtral, Fact Review, Greece Fact Check, Fact Check Cyprus and Science Feedback.

Background

Information crises are characterized by the emergence of an "information vacuum”, a critical window where the demand for reliable news far outpaces the supply of verified facts. It is within this vacuum of high uncertainty that disinformation thrives, often overwhelming the regular response capacities of media and fact-checking organizations.

We define an information crisis as the disruption of the information system characterized by a surge in the volume and intensity of disinformation within public and digital spaces.

This involves the deliberate spread of false or misleading content intended to deceive the public, cause harm, or achieve political, economic, or security gains, and triggering further social and political escalations in information space including hate speech, inciting public panic, increased societal polarization and institutional mistrust, threats to collective safety, and both online and physical attacks against specific social groups.

An information crisis is often, even if not always, determined by a crisis event. We divide these crisis events into three main categories: predictable, semi-predictable and unpredictable. For more information, refer to the Crisis Events Taxonomy.

The FACTEUR project recognises that an information crisis may emerge in one country without necessarily manifesting in another, as the potential for a situation to escalate into a full-scale information crisis often depends on specific national contexts and societal resilience. However, national-level crises are frequently exploited by disinformation actors to establish or reinforce specific disinformation-based narratives that then become cross-European. In this context, coordinated Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) operations, as long-lasting structured activities with dedicated infrastructure, can act as a powerful amplifier, strategically weaponizing crisis events, to boost their impact and scale narratives across borders.

Activities

Fact-checking organisations can request support for the following activities:

• Production of Fact-sheets – brief overviews in English of the most prevalent disinformation narratives and claims surging during ongoing semi-predictable and unpredictable crises events that may have cross border impact. Fact-sheets are intended to inform fellow fact-checkers, catalyse knowledge sharing and warn the community of potential spill-over effects in ongoing crisis situations;
• Production of Case studies – post-crisis analysis in which fact-checking organizations document disinformation surges during semi-predictable and unpredictable crisis events and their actions and experiences in order to share the know-how throughout the community.

Crisis events that are subjects of the Fact-sheets and Case studies must happen during the duration of the call. Both outputs need to be delivered in English and according to templates provided as Appendix 1 (Fact-sheets) and Appendix 2 (Case studies). Both outputs will be shared with the fact-checking organisations via the designated platform.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for funding, applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Legal entity: Applicants must be a legal entity, whether for-profit or non-profit.
• Certification: Applicants must be EFCSN certified fact-checking organisations.
• Fact-checking: Applicants must be fact-checking organisations or fact-checking teams or units within larger organisations. Fact-checking is defined as the use of an evidence-based method to verify the accuracy of claims made in the public sphere. Applicants must publish at least four human-authored fact-checking articles a month on average.
• Location: Organisations must be based in the European Union or DEP-associated countries (please consult this document for the most updated version).
• Single applicants: This call is intended for single applicants. Organizations can receive funding for production of fact-sheets and case studies multiple times.

Budget, Funding, Payment Terms, Grant Duration

• Total Budget for Emergency Response Support: 50.000€
• Maximum Project Amount: 2.000€ for fact-sheets and 7.000€ for case studies. Exact amount must be calculated using the template table.
• Funding Rate: 50%
• Maximum Grant Amount: 1.000€ for fact-sheets and 3.500€ for case studies.
• Form of Grant: lump sums
• Eligible costs:
  • Direct costs: Salaries and compensations for translation, other costs related to activities.
  • Indirect / Administrative Costs: Indirect costs cover organisational overhead directly related to managing this support request (e.g. staff time spent coordinating, administration). These are capped at 10% of total direct costs.
• Number of Grants: ~20
• Payment Structure: 100% following the delivery of outputs.
• Retroactive costs: If a grant is approved, costs are eligible from the time of application submission.
• Max. Grant Duration: 1 month for fact-sheets and 3 months for case studies.

Selection Procedure

The evaluation will be conducted in three phases:

Phase 1: Eligibility & Compliance: The EFCSN team will perform an initial check to ensure all applications are complete, meet the basic requirements and applicants are eligible.

Phase 2: Expert Evaluation: Requests will be evaluated by the consortium experts based on need, and the applicant’s capacity to absorb the support. EFCSN will oversee the process, ensuring transparency, financial safeguards, and equitable distribution. Applications will be assessed against the award criteria outlined below.

Phase 3: Approval: All grant applications that receive at least 14 points will be reviewed and approved by the WP4 Consortium.

How to Apply and Timeline

This call is open from 10 August 2026 on a rolling basis, but no later than 30 April 2028 or until funds are depleted.

To apply, please fill out this application formon the EFCSN Grants Platform. Note that you will need to register an account if you have not already.

Requests will be evaluated within 3 working days for factsheets, and 7 working days for case-studies from the application submission.

Rejected applicants may appeal within 5 working days. The Governance Body delegates the final review, which must be resolved within 15 working days.

Reporting

Grantees are obliged to submit the final output (fact sheet/case study) to the EFCSN grant OR community platform. Upon confirming that the outputs are in compliance with the grant requirements, EFCSN will issue an email notice of successful completion. All outputs will be published on the EFCSN grant OR community platform.

Transparency Notice

This call has also been published on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Funding granted through this call will be disclosed on: https://efcsn.com/funding-opportunities/. Disclosure will cover the name of the receiving organisation, amount, and grant duration.

NB! If a grant recipient operates in a high-risk environment or handles sensitive data, they may request that their identity remains confidential during the implementation phase and be disclosed after the end of the funding cycle.

Questions?

Please send questions about this call to grants@efcsn.com.

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HADEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.