Business Innovation Synergizer FAQ: What applicants need to know

Media organisations interested in the Media Innovation Europe 3.0 Business Innovation Synergizer (BIS) can now consult a new FAQ document providing additional answers and practical clarification for applicants ahead of the 20 September 2026 application deadline.

The Business Innovation Synergizer supports established media organisations that have already developed or validated a business idea, plan or strategy and are ready to move towards implementation and growth. Selected organisations can receive grants of up to 30,000, with no mandatory co-financing, alongside individual mentoring and implementation support.

Projects can focus on areas such as developing new revenue models, subscriptions and membership programmes, improving websites, applications and newsletters, introducing digital tools, developing new products and content formats, strengthening marketing and audience acquisition, or acquiring equipment, software and other infrastructure needed to implement a business innovation.

Who can apply? Applicants must be legally registered media organisations, have at least five full-time employees, and have had annual revenue of more than 80,000 in 2025. The media outlet must also have been established before 1 January 2025.

The call is open to organisations from all 27 EU Member States, as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia and Ukraine.

The new FAQ provides further clarification on how these eligibility requirements should be interpreted. In particular, the requirement of five full-time employees refers to people formally employed by the media organisation on a full-time basis. Freelancers and long-term contractual collaborators cannot be counted towards this threshold.

Applications, budgets and previous participation Applicants do not need to submit a separate detailed budget file at the application stage. Completing the budget section of the online application with the main budget items is sufficient. Organisations selected for support will later work with a dedicated mentor to develop a more detailed budget.

A media organisation may also submit more than one application for different projects, as the call does not establish a strict one-application-per-organisation limit. Each application, however, will be evaluated independently and must meet all eligibility and selection requirements. Applications must be submitted by a single media organisation rather than a consortium.

Organisations that participated in the BIS 2024 programme are eligible to apply again, although preference in the selection process will be given to applicants that have not previously participated in BIS.

Applicants may also submit applications to both the Business Innovation Synergizer and Validation Booster calls. However, an applicant selected under both schemes may ultimately receive funding from only one of them.

Equipment, VAT and procurement The FAQ also addresses several practical questions concerning eligible expenditure.

The 40% ceiling for equipment applies only to physical equipment, rather than software, licences, cloud services or other forms of digital infrastructure. Non-recoverable VAT may also be considered an eligible cost where the organisation can demonstrate that it cannot recover the VAT.

For purchases exceeding 1,000, beneficiaries will be required to obtain at least three written quotations through a Request for Quotation process and retain the corresponding procurement documentation for financial reporting.

Read the full FAQ before applying The Business Innovation Synergizer FAQ contains further answers concerning eligible organisations, organisational documentation, public media, organisations operating multiple media outlets, exchange rates, procurement requirements and other practical aspects of preparing an application.

Applicants are encouraged to consult the full FAQ document alongside the Call for Applications before submitting their proposal.

The deadline for applications is 20 September 2026 at 23:59 CET. Projects can last for up to 12 months and will be implemented between January and December 2027.

Media Innovation Europe 3.0 is co-funded by the European Union and implemented by a consortium led by the International Press Institute, together with Thomson Media, The Fix Foundation and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

-- Explore our projects across the globe

LINK:	http://www.thomsonfoundation.org/latest/business-innovation-synergizer...
	See more stories from thompsonfoundation

Most recent headlines