The Media Support Fund has announced tenders for financial support

“We have announced tenders, today is the first day. (…) According to our statutes, the fund’s council must approve the start of the competition, and today the council gave the green light,” Ruslanas Iržikevičius, director of the Media Sponsorship Fund, told BNS.

Competitions are announced in four programs: cultural media and cultural periodicals, regional media, news, investigative and educational journalism, media in the languages ​​of national minorities and media of the Lithuanian diaspora.

Contests are held from Monday to April 3.

As announced by the foundation, this year’s project applications are submitted in electronic form, which will be available on the foundation’s online platform from March 7. This means that although the tenders are announced on Monday, applications can be officially submitted from Thursday.

“We give some time for the applicants to prepare, to have time to familiarize themselves with the rules, the data that will be needed to submit the applications,” said R. Iržikevičius.

It is announced that the fund will hold training sessions for applicants in mid-March in order to introduce the new funding model in more detail.

“At the end of this week, we will announce when the training will be organized. They will take place remotely,” said the director of the fund.

Before the foundation had issued calls for applications, some cultural publications that did not receive support began to express concerns regarding their survival.

At the end of January, the Minister of Culture, Simonas Kairys, urged the council of this fund to finish discussions on programs and criteria and to announce a tender for the allocation of funds sooner, stating that the ministry has secured the budget for this and is waiting for the council’s decisions.

Then the ministry turned to the editorial offices of eight periodical cultural publications, invited them to participate in the public procurement and receive support of up to five thousand euros, which would help them to hold out until the start of the fund’s tenders.

The Media Support Fund was established last autumn, and since January, it has changed media support, including the cultural, administered Press, Radio and Television Support Fund. The budget of the new fund is double that of the previous one and amounts to 6.5 million. euros.