Awards and Grants

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ short fiction contest will be judged by renowned American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. No entry fee. Cash prizes. Deadline is Sep 30, 2025.

This grant of up to £20k, a collaboration between One World Media, Pulitzer Centre and the Financial Times, is for an experienced filmmaker who wants to explore, through a short documentary, underreported stories about health in the global south. Deadline: Aug 20, 2025.

The Center for Cooperative Media offers 10 awards up to $15,000 each for short-term civic science media projects in the U.S. that can bridge the gap between scientists, media and communities. Includes hands-on coaching. Deadline: Aug 31, 2025.

The Global Heat Health Information Network, in partnership with Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, is launching a global photography competition to showcase the real impacts of extreme heat, and the ways communities around the world are responding to it. Deadline: Aug 29, 2025.

If you’re a journalist in the US or Canada and you think a story you’ve worked on would make a good movie or episode of a TV show, submit two nominations by the earlybird deadline of Aug 3 or one nomination by the final deadline of Sep 1, 2025. Info sessions available on July 23, 25 and an Aug date TBD.

Run by the Wits Centre for Journalism and the African Investigative Journalism Conference, this award recognizes outstanding investigative reporting from across Africa. Enter by Jul 15 for the chance to win cash and a trip to the AIJC conference, Nov 5-7, 2025 in Johannesburg.

The 2025 Central European Initiative and the South East Europe Media Organisation award seeks to highlight the role of investigative journalism in raising public awareness of critical issues such as human rights violations, social discrimination, corruption, gender inequality, environmental threats. Cash prizes. Enter by Jul 15.

The Collier Prize for State Government Accountability is initiating a new quarterly award to recognize impactful reporting on state institutions. No fees to enter. All media platforms are eligible. Next deadline is Dec 1, 2025. 

Afreximbank's Creative Africa Nexus programme invites entries by Jun 30 from filmmakers aged 18 to 35 years old, living in Africa and the Diaspora. Three winners will receive a cash prize of $2000, have their film screened at CANEX at IATF2025 in Algiers, Algeria, Sep 4-10, and an expenses-paid trip to attend.

The World Food Forum's Global Youth Action Initiative invites fiction and non-fiction entries to this global short film competition. Filmmakers must be 18-39 years old. Winning films may be screened at the festival in Rome from Oct 13-17, 2025. Cash prizes. Enter by Jul 21.