Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund

What is the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund?

The Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund is a program, established by the Government that will support regional and small publishers to transition to and compete more successfully in the evolving media environment. Noting this, applications will be assessed with regard to the size and location of applicants.

Top Tips

These are the things you will need to focus on in order to get this grant

1. Strategy – how the proposed project aligns with, and supports, your own strategies for business growth and the sustainable production of public interest journalism
2. Go or No Go – whether the project will proceed, in whole or part, without support from the Innovation Fund.
3. Adapt – how you could or will adapt your business to take on the improvements and innovations from the proposed project
4. Skills – your current and proposed access to appropriately skilled and experienced project personnel
5. Resources – your current and proposed access to the infrastructure, capital equipment and technology necessary to deliver on the proposed project
6. Intellectual Property – how you have or will secure beneficial use of any IP necessary to complete the proposed project
7. Competitiveness – how the proposed project will improve the competitiveness of you.
8. Costs – that the project is a cost-effective way to deliver the intended outcomes of the Innovation Fund
9. Risks – the risks associated with the proposed project and how these risks will be managed
10. Finances – how you will monitor the performance of the proposed project and manage the financial aspects of the grant funding
11. Governance – how you will provide suitable and effective governance arrangements to successfully deliver the proposed project.
12. Revenue – how the proposed project will improve the capacity of you to generate revenue from the production of civic and public interest journalism
13. Innovation – how the proposed project will encourage innovation and experimentation in digital journalism
14. Financial Position – how the proposed project will support business improvement activities that will strengthen the financial position of you within the level of grant funding being sought
15. Sustainability – your capacity to maintain and extend the benefits of the project beyond the grant funding period
16. Measurement – how you will measure the effectiveness of the proposed project, including audience reach and impact.
17. Justification – how the grant amount sought for the proposed project represents a proportionate and appropriate allocation of resources relative to the scale of the proposed project
18. Detail – how your budget for the proposed project contains an adequate level of detail and is appropriate to achieve the proposed project activities.

Contact me if you need more assistance with the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund [email protected]

Application Tips

I walk through the key aspects of the application here

Background

When launching the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund 2020 Round, the ACMA has noted that regional and small publishers are facing additional financial pressures caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ACMA notes that these pressures are exacerbating the effect of the structural challenges that the Innovation Fund has been established to address.

The timing of the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund 2020 Round will therefore be shorter than previous rounds so that grant funding can be awarded and distributed to provide immediate assistance. However, applicants should be aware that the objective of the 2020 Round as set out above is to support the production of public interest journalism. It is not specifically aimed at addressing the loss of advertising revenue due to the current crisis.

The Regional Grant Opportunity

The Regional Grant Opportunity is an additional program under the Innovation Fund designed to make residual funding from round one of the Fund (up to $12.4 million) available to regional publishers and online content providers.

The Regional Grant Opportunity is targeted at regional news publishers who can demonstrate a solid business case to increase the sustainability of their publishing activities, including news gathering, production and distribution. Its objective is to provide these businesses with financial security in the medium term to allow them to take calculated risks to reorient their business models to adapt to the digital age.

Objective

• to increase the sustainability of their news publishing activities (including news gathering, production and distribution) in the short to medium term; or
• to develop and trial transformational or innovative models for the sustainable provision of public interest journalism and reposition their businesses to adapt to the new media environment in the longer term.

The Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund 2020 Round will meet its objective by funding proposals that achieve one or more of the following outcomes for each successful applicant in relation to its production of public interest journalism:

• improve the capacity of publishers and content service providers to generate revenue from the production of civic and public interest journalism (for example, advertising or subscription revenue); or
• support business improvement activities that sustain or strengthen the financial position of publishers and content service providers by:
  • increasing readership or distribution; and/ or
  • reducing operating costs through more efficient business practices; or
• encourage innovation and experimentation in digital journalism.

Funding

A total of $5 million is available for the Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund 2020 Round, which will run from 24 April 2020 to 22 May 2020. The length of the application period takes into account the Government’s intention that applications are assessed quickly so that grant funding can be provided as soon as possible.

• There is no minimum grant amount.
• The maximum grant amount is $400,000 for any applicant (excluding GST).

Note that the total grant amount awarded to applicants in any given financial year (including any related bodies corporate) must not exceed $1 million. This applies where grants have been awarded in multiple rounds in the same financial year.

The mix of funded projects will be a matter for the ACMA Authority to determine. Depending on the applications received and their relative merits, at least two-thirds of total funding in the 2020 Round is expected to go to regional publishers and content service providers and not less than 25 per cent to non-regional (that is, metropolitan) publishers and content service providers.

Eligible Projects

Consistent with the requirements of the BSA, activities to be funded by a grant must concern the applicant’s activities as they relate to either the publication of the applicant’s newspaper, magazine or other periodical, or the provision of a content service.

In addition, to reflect the objective of the Innovation Fund, funded activities will directly support the provision of public interest journalism and increase the sustainability of an applicant’s news creation and publishing activities, including news gathering, production and distribution. It is expected that funded activities will be activities that support the outcomes of the Innovation Fund.

The Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund 2020 Round is intended to fund a broad range of activities that relate to the applicant’s production of public interest journalism and supports the objective and outcomes of the 2020 Round. In addition to funding investment in capital projects, eligible expenditure includes funding for activities that relate to improving the sustainability of publishers and content service providers.

Grantees can only spend the grant on eligible expenditure incurred on agreed project activities.

Eligible expenditure could encompass:

• project delivery costs (that are directly related to the project)
• purchase or lease of assets and equipment (particularly technology)
• commissioning advice or contracting services from third parties
• acquisition of relevant intellectual property or other rights
• the costs of acquiring new technology to assist with distributing content to a wider audience
• salaries for applicant employees that are directly connected to the production of public interest journalism or to the generation of revenue to fund the production of public interest journalism
• costs of training to upskill staff
• establishment costs of a database of reader or subscriber information
• costs to assist journalists with content production
• pilots or feasibility studies for innovative projects designed to promote the long-term sustainability of the applicant’s business and their ability to provide public interest journalism.

Eligible Applicants

Applicants can satisfy the eligibility criteria in two ways:

• by demonstrating compliance with each eligibility criterion by addressing each criterion in the application form; or
• by showing that the applicant has previously been found to be eligible to apply for a grant in a previous round of the Innovation Fund  or the Regional Grant Opportunity and the circumstances of the applicant’s eligibility have not changed.

Applicants must satisfy the four eligibility criteria set out below. Otherwise, an application will not proceed to the next assessment stage.

• Criterion 1: Incorporated company
• Criterion 2: Australian Business Number and GST registration
• Criterion 3: Publisher / content service provider
• Criterion 4: Annual turnover (metropolitan applicants only)

To apply for a grant under the Innovation Fund, applicants must meet statutory criteria set out in section 205ZH of the BSA, namely, that an applicant is either:

• a constitutional corporation that publishes a newspaper, magazine or other periodical; or
• a content service provider.

This is because, under the BSA, the ACMA is only permitted to award grants to those entities.

Publishers and content service providers who applied for grants in the previous rounds of the Innovation Fund (including applicants who were awarded grants under those rounds) are eligible to apply to this round.

Timing

Applications close 22 May 2020.

Regional Grant Opportunity – Current Recipients

More Information

• Source
• Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund Guidelines
• Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund Application Form
• Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund Round 1 Recipients

Latest News

06 April 2020 – Government releases $5M in funds to help regional publishers through COVID-19 crisis