TERMS OF REFERENCE
Feasibility study for the pilot project “ERASMUS for journalists”
(under the Framework Contract SMART 2007/0035)
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1.
CONTEXT AND AIMS OF THE ASSIGNMENT .................................................................... 3
2.1 Background .................................................................................................................. 3
2.2 Legal references ........................................................................................................... 3
2.3 Description of the planned pilot project ....................................................................... 3
2.4 Description of the exploratory study ............................................................................ 4
2.
STUDY PROCESS ............................................................................................................. 7
3.1 Timing of the study process ........................................................................................ 7
3.2. Reporting and deliverables......................................................................................... 8
3.
ORGANISATION ............................................................................................................ 10
4.
DURATION .................................................................................................................... 10
5.
LOGISTICS AND TIMETABLE........................................................................................ 10
6.
PRICE............................................................................................................................ 11
7.
GEOGRAPHICAL COVERAGE........................................................................................ 11
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1.
CONTEXT AND AIMS OF THE ASSIGNMENT
2.1 Background
This feasibility study for a pilot project is being launched following a request from the
European Parliament (through the EP resolution on the budget of the EU for 2010). It
proposes the creation of a programme
"ERASMUS for journalists".
It is anticipated that a pilot project on a mobility scheme could enhance the training of
journalists, particularly young journalists, within the European Union. The main goal of the
proposed pilot project is to enable journalists of different countries and media to gain a
broader and more comprehensive understanding of the European Union and its different
media and cultures. Such an exchange programme could, in the European Parliament's view,
help journalists to gain new experience and knowledge of the European Union, to improve
their knowledge of media pluralism in different Member States and help the exchange of good
practice on common themes between journalists of different nationalities.
Mobility and peer learning are key factors in the transfer of knowledge and good practice, and
would enhance the effectiveness of the journalists' work. The proposed project will ensure
that experience is exchanged and reinforced at European level for the benefit of better
journalism. Such practices could contribute to the emergence of a more European focus in the
media. The purpose of this study is to provide an ex ante evaluation of the feasibility of the
proposed pilot project in year n+2 and a scaled-up programme in year n+4, following an ex
post evaluation of the pilot.
2.2 Legal references
In the EU's budget for 2010, the European Parliament proposed a preparatory action (09 06
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) and allocated a budget for it with the aim of preparing in due course a pilot project called
"Erasmus for journalists". The Parliament expressed the wish that this project should
contribute to the creation of truly European media. One of the ways to achieve this goal is to
offer journalists the possibility of mobility, through exchanges of journalists between different
countries and media within the European Union.
The preparatory action has its legal base in Article 49(6) of Council Regulation (EC,
Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the
general budget of the European Communities (OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1), as amended by
Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1995/2006 (OJ L 390, 30.12.2006, p. 1).
2.3 Description of the planned pilot project
The beneficiaries of the proposed pilot project should be journalists working for EU
publications and electronic media, particularly young journalists from different countries and
media within the European Union. The participants would benefit from exchanging
experience with other journalists in other European Union’s Member States and upon
returning home, they could disseminate this new experience through the media of their home
countries.
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The mobility scheme would provide participating journalists with peer-learning opportunities
abroad and working as part of the editorial staff of media bodies based in other countries. The
objective of the mobility scheme would be for journalists to learn from each other, benefiting
from the experience of people facing similar challenges in journalism, particularly in media
environments with different traditions of media pluralism.
Both the visits and the collaboration foreseen among journalists from different cultures should
aim at promoting the transfer of "good practice" and "good policies" in journalism between
Member States of the European Union. Exchange of experience on successes or difficulties in
journalism and in sustaining media pluralism would be part of the proposed scheme. The
journalists would be encouraged to establish partnerships, thus enhancing the European
dimension of journalism.
More specifically, the mobility scheme could potentially include the following objectives. To:
- Foster peer learning of journalism in other member states of the European Union;
- Exchange experience with journalist of other nationalities who are facing similar obstacles
and challenges;
- Facilitate the search for potential partners for European collaboration;
- Provide possibility to learn how to manage and successfully address various issues of
journalism and media pluralism in editorial staffs in other Member States;
- Ensure that journalists, by means of developing in-depth knowledge and experience
through exchanges, collaboration and working sessions, improve their abilities in the
domain of journalism.
2.4 Description of the exploratory study
The exploratory study shall test the underlying intervention logic and define implementation
rules for a possible “Erasmus for journalists” programme. The output shall constitute original
analysis, rather than being a mere assembly of secondary sources; and it shall be fit for the
purposes described in this terms of reference; it shall take the already on-going Erasmus
programmes into account in order to learn from their experiences and avoid any duplication
and may propose alternatives. The study shall consist of two parts.
Part 1
The first part of the study to be carried out should deal with the following broad issues:
• Testing overall feasibility of the pilot project given timeframe and organisational setting,
notably the intervention logic. The Commission intends to have the programme
implemented by an external service provider.
• Provide the results of consultations of stakeholders participating in focus groups to show
the needs of potential participants and of the needs of organisations hosting the mobility
scheme.
• Provide a budgetary estimate with regards to different forms of mobility and participation
• Provide the Commission with the documentation needed in order to launch the
implementation of the pilot project (application forms, guidelines and information material
including process flow-charts, a guide for applicants).
• Propose a feasible system of reporting.
In order to make these issues operational the following tasks have to be tackled in the study:
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Task 1
The contractor should assess and test the underlying intervention logic of the Parliament's
proposal in respect of the outcomes foreseen and advice on whether exchanges of journalists
between countries would achieve the objectives sought by the European Parliament. It should
evaluate the policy objectives sought by the proposal and determine the main framework
conditions for its implementation. The concept should be consistent with other policy goals
and activities.
Task 2
The study should elaborate an implementation scheme including recommendations on how a
pilot project could be implemented by a professional organisation as an external service
provider and how the pilot project could be scaled up later into a larger programme.
Regarding the implementation of the programme, in order to achieve effective, low-risk
implementation with indicative results, the following list of fundamental questions needs to be
addressed and answered as a minimum. The answers should cover participation by journalists
from all media types (print/TV/Radio/Online).
Questions:
Intervention logic:
- Is there an interest from journalists to visit peer editorial staffs in other Member States?
- Are journalists ready to devote time for such visits and collaboration? And how much
time? A week or couple of weeks or an even longer time?
- What duration should be envisaged for visits in order to test the approach in a pilot
implementation and achieve impacts in a full programme? Which range of durations
would be acceptable in order to achieve impacts rather than mere output activity?
- Is there an interest and will from editorial boards in other member states to welcome such
representatives for a certain time?
- Is there an added-value of such visits from both a political and journalistic perspective?
- Would the approach be supported by publishers/media service providers?
- Would the approach proposed by the European Parliament achieve concrete benefits for
media pluralism as analysed in the recent study undertaken on media pluralism indicators
for the Commission?1
Implementation:
- How can the aims of the programme be implemented operationally in the most effective
way?
- How to ensure that the budget is not spent on touristic visits which would not fulfil the
intentions of the EP and could create reputational risk for the institutions?
- How would the scheme cope with language issues? Even if the visitors speak a main
foreign language there might be communication problems during the everyday work
particularly in the cases of "small language (visitor) - small language (host)"
combinations.
- The study should address the issue of whether the proposed pilot programme should
organise individual visits or address group visits as well.
- The study should suggest how to achieve a good balance through the implementing rules
with respect to geographic, thematic, local/regional coverage.
1 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/media_taskforce/pluralism/study/index_en.htm
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- There is a need for a minimum quality assurance for participants' selection and for
hosting institutions' selection. How to set these criteria?
- Are there some themes (e.g. certain editorial practices) which attract more attention from
concerned participants, in the European context?
- Should participants undergo a pre-departure induction course/briefing before their visit
including information on the mobility scheme, inter-cultural learning and relevant EU
level information, such as the internal market, European law issues, EU institutions, etc?
- Who would be the beneficiaries of the Community funding? Ultimately, it would be
journalists, but as it is not realistic/possible for the Commission to contract directly with
individuals in a subsidy mode, should it be their employers (publishers)?
- Would it be more effective to channel funding through an intermediary organisation or
organisations as in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs initiative?
Task 3
In order to facilitate the evaluation of the programme the study should provide detailed
assessment methods to be used once the 1 year pilot project has been finished and is to be
assessed. The proposed evaluation method should take into consideration the likely structure
of the programme, and it must be relatively simple, efficient and reliable.
Task 4
Due to the very high number of tasks to be accomplished, there is an important resource
implication. Therefore, the level of the budget is particularly important, both for establishing
proof of concept during the pilot and for the putative programme. A key question is the level
of funding needed to achieve impacts during the main programme. The budgeting should
include the estimated costs of the management framework during both the pilot project and
when scaled up into the main programme phases. The underlying methodologies used for
such estimates should be explained in detail. The evaluation of the potential costs should
include such items as a) personnel and overhead costs of the management organisation, b)
grants for journalist, c) possible financial support for the host institution, d) managing website
and other communication activities, e) other items.
Task 5
A wide range of communication related issues has also to be analysed. In addition to general
awareness raising and dissemination activities, the development of a website, including a
database will be also needed. The study should elaborate these requirements. The website
should enable to carry out the following tasks as a minimum: a) advertise the opportunity for
study visits and the selection and evaluation process; b) "matching" of partners; c) provide a
database tool for peer-contacting, taking into account linguistic abilities; d) set the format for
final reports on study visits, etc.
Task 6
The launching of this pilot project and subsequent full programme may include various types
of potential risks and risk areas which the study should systematically identify and then
carefully analyse and then provide some potential solutions or alternative ways to avoid them.
The implementation proposal, together with the suggested comprehensive evaluation of the
pilot project and the budgetary issues, should provide the basis for a document addressed to
the European Parliament concerning the putative rationale for the mainstreaming of the
programme.
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Part two
The elaboration of the programme and its successful implementation will depend very much
on having a good understanding of the current state of journalism and the media sector in
Europe across Member States. Achieving this requires a systematic analysis based on
statistical evidence. Therefore, the contractor should also collect statistical data that would (1)
support its proposals in the context of the present study and (2) help any external management
body to run the programme, and (3) help the Commission in its supervision of this entity. The
statistical data should demonstrate the recent development of the media sector and the
situation of journalists. These data should reveal the prevailing conditions of various types of
challenges generated by the on-going technical development of ICT and the rapidly spreading
use of internet as well as the adverse effects of the global economic and financial crisis on the
media sector. The statistical data should also contribute to the mapping the main features of
the media and journalists regarding their understanding of the European Union and its
different media and cultures.
In order to be able to find answers and elaborate alternative proposals the contractor should
gather and process statistical data and other relevant information about the media industry,
potential participants of the programme (i.e. journalists, editorial boards, professional
institutions, European institutes, etc.). This part of the study should comprise these statistical
data and related analysis. The statistical database to be developed should include mainly
proprietary data (i.e. gathered and processed by the contractor) and it may include few data
only from known statistical data sources (e.g. Eurostat, World Magazine Trends, World Press
Trends of WAP, Audiovisual Observatory, etc.). The statistical data base should include short
time series and snapshot data.
Time series and snapshot data should serve to show the current situation of media and
demonstrate the impacts of the economic crisis affecting the media. The data collection
should concentrate on the following areas:
a) the professional situation of journalists;
b) the current economic and business position of the media market;
c) the main trends in European media;
d) evidence of how far there is a comprehensive understanding of the EU and its different
media and cultures among journalists.
The proposal should include a description of the detailed list of those statistical data which
will be delivered. The description should explain the relevance, type, methodology of data
collecting and/or processing, the availability and other important features of these statistical
data. The evaluation of the proposals submitted to the pilot action and ultimately the
programme will significantly depend on this information.
The contractor should prepare a written evaluation based on this statistical database regarding
the issues mentioned above.
As a minimum, this work should cover a representative sample of Member States to be
defined and justified in the offer. Full coverage of all EU Member States would be preferable
if it were considered feasible by the contractor and developed in the offer.
2.
STUDY PROCESS
3.1 Timing of the study process
The process of preparing the study should include the following phases:
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- An initial meeting with the Commission and the Steering group in Brussels (kick-off
meeting) and follow-up meetings as appropriate. Meetings should also take place with
stakeholders (i.e. journalists, publishers, editors, associations, etc.) to present and discuss
the interim report and final report.
- Gather information and make an analysis on existing mobility support (Erasmus
programmes).
- Prepare reports on the experience of comparable existing programmes, including those
offered by private foundations, opinion and interest of stakeholders, gathered statistical
information. The objective is to get the points of view of those who are potential visitors
(journalists) and hosts (all types of media companies) in as many Member States as
possible and to discuss with them the different variants of the planned action.
- Provide an estimate of the costs that each alternative may imply.
- Make proposals concerning the design of the pilot project in terms of objectives, target
group, length of the stay abroad, financial support scheme (individual grants, project
grants, flat rates, etc.) and its implication and its management structure. The latter should
be done by testing different scenarios.
- Elaborate a reporting and proposal evaluation system, using for instance flow charts.
- Identify the factors that constitute an obstacle for hosting journalists to participate in the
pilot programme and develop measures that would help to overcome those obstacles and
enhance the participation of host media firms.
- Statistical work as described in part two above.
3.2. Reporting and deliverables
Each report will be submitted in electronic format and in 4 hardcopies in English. The reports
and all other documents have to be submitted electronically either in MS Word or pdf format.
The Commission will comment on interim reports and on the final report within 15 working
days. In the absence of observation from the Commission within the deadline, the report will
be considered as being approved.
3.3. Inception report
On the basis of a kick-off meeting of the Steering Group the Inception Report of at least 10
pages will be submitted 3 weeks after the final signature of the contract. It will describe the
methodology and procedure applied, in particular the instruments and tools used to do the
consultation, etc. It will provide a detailed description of the organisation of the project and a
detailed, updated work plan and timetable.
3.4. Interim report (1st part)
The Interim report (preliminary version of the final report) will contain an overview of the
work carried out during the first phase of the study. It should at least include the following:
• Complete information on progress achieved in fulfilment of the tasks to be carried out as
specified in 2.4;
• Problems encountered, solutions found or proposed, and impact on future work;
• Strengths and weaknesses of the alternative scenarios that could be recommended on how
to organise efficiently mobility of journalists;
• Detailed time schedule and methodology for the completion of the work.
The Interim report shall be submitted by the end of month 4 after the date of signature of the
contract. The Interim report will be discussed with the Commission at a check point meeting
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taking place after the submission of the report. Within 10 days of receiving the Commission’s
observations, the Contractor will submit the report in a definitive form, taking full account of
these observations.
3.5 Final Report (1st and 2nd phases)
Part 1 final report
The Contractor will produce a part 1 draft final report based on its findings (existing mobility
schemes in the EU, consultation with stakeholders, various reports, etc.). Part 1 of the draft
final study report shall be submitted by the 6th month following the date of signature of the
contract by the last of the two parties. The final report should describe the methodology and
organisation of the work and activities that have been done. It should represent the main
results, outcomes, conclusions and recommendations. It should also summarise some key
outcomes of the study.
The above report will also include the inputs necessary for the preparation of the call for
tender to select the external service provider that will manage the pilot project. The
contribution will mainly consist of identifying the tasks and reports that the external service
provider has to deliver. Finally, the Contractor will draft guidelines that can be addressed to
and used by journalists and hosting media companies that are interested in participating in the
pilot programme.
After reception of the draft version of the report and its annexes, the Commission will within
10 working days inform the Contractor of the acceptance of these documents, or will pass on
its observations. Within 10 days of receiving the Commission’s final observations, the
Contractor will submit the final versions of the report in definitive form, either taking account
of these observations or setting out different arguments. The draft version of the guidelines for
journalists and host media companies have to be submitted by the middle of month 7.
Part 2 final report
Part 2 of the study (statistical database and analysis) has to be submitted by the end of the 11
month after the date of signature of the contract. After reception of the draft version of the
Part 2 of the report, the Commission will within 10 working days inform the Contractor of the
acceptance of these documents, or will pass on its observations. Within 10 days of receiving
the Commission’s final observations, the Contractor will submit the final versions of the
report in definitive form, either taking account of these observations or setting out different
arguments. The consolidated versions of all documents of the final reports have to be
submitted before the end of month 11 after the signature of the contract.
The consolidated versions of all final reports (two parts of the study, guidebooks, contribution
to the drafting of the call for tender) should be together approximately 90-100 pages, of which
approximately 10 pages of summary, plus an additional 80 to 100 statistical tables based on
the data collection work.
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3.
ORGANISATION
The contract will be managed by DG INFSO unit A1. INFSO/A1 will set up a Steering Group
composed of DG INFSO officials. The Steering Group will follow the activities undertaken,
provide guidance on its execution and give opinions on its results. A staff member of
INFSO/A1 will chair the Steering Group and its meetings.
Contact:
European Commission
DG Information Society and Media
Directorate A - Audiovisual and Media Policies Unit (office BU33 3/35)
for the attention of
Jean-Eric de Cockborne
1-3 Avenue du Bourget
B -1140 Brussels
4.
DURATION
The duration of the tasks should not exceed 12 months.
5.
LOGISTICS AND TIMETABLE
The study will be carried out at the Contractor’s own offices. Unless agreed otherwise
between the parties the meetings with the Commission and with the Steering Group will take
in Brussels.
Activity time scale
activities time
scale
Kick-off meeting between Contractor and 1st month
Commission (Steering Group)
Preparation, discussion of the Inception 2nd month (beginning)
report within 2 weeks after the kick-off
meeting
Delivery of Interim Report (preliminary End of 4th month
version of the final report)
Interim meeting in Brussels
End of 5th month
Stakeholders’ meeting in Brussels - 6th month
Presentation of Interim results
Draft final report (Part 1) finalisation of End of 6th month
research work and submission of the of the
result within 2 weeks after the stakeholders
meeting
Draft final report meeting - in Brussels
7th month
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Submission of draft guidelines for journalists End of 7th month
and host media companies.
Draft final report (Part 2) - Finalisation of End of 11th month
research and submission
Final report evaluation meeting in Brussels - 12th month
Submission of the final consolidated report
with all annexes within 2 weeks after the
final meeting
6.
PRICE
The maximum price for this feasibility study is 500.000 EUR (including travel, excluding
VAT/TVA).
7.
GEOGRAPHICAL COVERAGE
Part 1 should include the possibility of participants from all Member States. As a minimum,
Part 2 should cover a representative sample of Member States.
8.
AWARD OF THE CONTRACT
The specific contract shall be awarded to the tender offering the best value for money, which
will be the one with the best quality/price ratio, taking into account the award criteria listed in
Annex II of the Framework Contract.
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