Citizen facing European TV and Video News Portal for Streaming, Search and Translation of European TV and video news and political documentaries produ...

This PPPA call PPPA-2026 funds a pilot pan‑European multilingual AI media infrastructure to ingest, process, index and distribute professional TV and video news and political documentaries. Total budget €5,500,000 for one project with EU co‑financing up to 80% of eligible costs and a project duration up to 24 months (earliest start 1 January 2027, latest 1 March 2027). Eligible applicants are consortia of at least five independent legal entities established in five different EU Member States, including media organisations, broadcasters, AI and language technology providers and research partners. Single-stage electronic submission via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal (Part B max 70 pages) is due 28 May 2026 17:00 Brussels time and proposals will be evaluated on Relevance (40), Quality (40) and Impact (20) with an overall threshold of 60/100.

Citizen facing European TV and Video News Portal — call overview

What it funds

Purpose and expected impact

Develop, integrate and operate a pilot pan-European multilingual AI media infrastructure to enable near-real-time ingestion, pooling, processing, search, streaming, multilingual access, discovery and cross-border distribution of professional TV and video news and political documentaries. The pilot must embed public-interest safeguards (transparency, provenance, non-discrimination), support onboarding of diverse accredited media (including smaller/local outlets), deliver reusable building blocks and governance paths, and run measurable real-world pilots to prepare scale-up.

Who can apply:Consortia of legal entities established in eligible countries (EU Member States). Minimum 5 independent beneficiaries from 5 different eligible countries. Eligible participants include public and private media organisations, broadcasters, online news platforms, AI technology providers, AI factories, creative partners and rights management organisations; affiliated entities, subcontractors and associated partners are permitted under the rules.

1. 1Eligible activities: development, integration, testing and piloting of core infrastructure, interoperable APIs, AI-enabled multilingual processing (transcription, translation, subtitling, dubbing where relevant), multimodal enrichment, discovery/user-facing search and recommendation aligned with public-interest principles, provenance and QA workflows, sector coordination and outreach, governance and sustainability planning.
2. 2Ineligible activities: advocacy targeting EU institutions; financial support to third parties is not allowed unless explicitly permitted in the call documentation; natural persons (except self-employed) and certain international organisations are excluded.
3. 3Operational and financial capacity checks apply; public bodies and small grants may be exempted from some checks.

Budget and funding rate:Indicative total call budget €5,500,000; expected to fund one project with a maximum requested grant amount up to €5,500,000. EU co-financing up to 80% of eligible costs. Project duration normally up to 24 months ¹.

Proposals must be single-stage, submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal using the Portal templates (Part A online; Part B PDF upload). Part B is limited to 70 pages. Consortium must register participants (PICs) in the Participant Register before submission. Detailed admissibility, eligibility, evaluation and reporting rules are in the call document and the PPPA Model Grant Agreement.

Evaluation and award highlights:Award criteria: Relevance 40 pts, Quality 40 pts, Impact 20 pts; overall pass threshold 60/100 and individual criterion thresholds. Evaluation timeline: June–September 2026 with information in September 2026; grant agreement signature anticipated December 2026.

Support and contact: For non-IT questions contact CNECT-I4@ec.europa.eu. Use the Funding & Tenders Portal for submission, partner search and Q&A. Read the Call Document, Model Grant Agreement and Online Manual before preparing an application.

Footnotes

1. 1Full call documentation, conditions, templates and annexes are available in the official call fiche and call document on the Funding & Tenders Portal Call fiche.

Citizen facing European TV and Video News Portal (PPPA-2026-CITIZEN-PLATFORM-TV)

Opportunity summary

Call for proposals to design, develop, integrate, operate and pilot a pilot pan-European multilingual AI media infrastructure enabling near-real-time ingestion, pooling, processing, search, streaming, multilingual access, discovery and distribution of professional TV and video news and political documentaries produced or transmitted by accredited public and private media in EU Member States. The action will embed public-interest-by-design safeguards including provenance, traceability, transparency, non-discrimination and ethical use of AI, deliver reusable platform capabilities and support sector coordination and uptake.

Primary documents and reference:Call Document and annexes published on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal and the PPPA Model Grant Agreement. Full call fiche and detailed Call Document available in the Submission System and as published by DG CONNECT Call Document PPPA-2026-CITIZEN-PLATFORM_EN ¹

Key facts

Programme: Pilot Projects & Preparatory Actions (PPPA). Call identifier: PPPA-2026. Type of action: PPPA Project Grants. Type of Model Grant Agreement: PPPA Action Grant Budget-Based [PPPA-AG]. Opening planned: 16 April 2026. Submission deadline: 28 May 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time. Deadline model: single-stage. Planned evaluation June–September 2026; Grant Agreement signature target December 2026; earliest project start 1 January 2027; latest 1 March 2027. Expected duration: up to 24 months (extensions possible if justified).

1. 1Available call budget: €5,500,000 total (one expected grant).
2. 2Maximum EU co-financing rate: up to 80% of total eligible costs.
3. 3Number of projects expected to be funded: indicative 1.

Detailed description and scope

Overall objective: to develop, integrate and operate a pilot pan-European multilingual AI media infrastructure that enables near-real-time ingestion, pooling, processing, search, streaming, multilingual access and cross-border discovery and distribution of professional news and public-interest content across EU languages and Member States, embedding safeguards for public interest and ethical AI, promoting linguistic and cultural diversity and ensuring inclusive participation of smaller and independent media organisations. Scope covers three pillars: core infrastructure backbone and interoperability; AI technologies for multilingual access, media processing and multimodal enrichment; and public-interest discovery, trust and adoption at scale.

1. 1Core pan-European infrastructure backbone and interoperability: onboarding diverse professional media providers, open modular APIs, ingestion/output interfaces, metadata and rights handling, monitoring, resilience and operational validation under near-real-time news conditions.
2. 2AI technologies and media processing: near-real-time ASR/transcription, translation, subtitling, optional dubbing/voice-over, summarisation, classification, entity/topic extraction, multimodal enrichment, experimentation with conversational/agentic interfaces and new storytelling formats, and news-grade quality assurance with editorial oversight and human review workflows.
3. 3Public-interest discovery, trust and uptake: public-interest search, navigation and recommendation that fosters pluralism and user agency, provenance and traceability of content and AI transformations, labelling of AI-processed outputs, safeguards against manipulation, sector coordination group, real-world pilots with measurable KPIs, onboarding and capacity-building and sustainability/governance pathways.

Eligibility and consortium requirements

Eligible Applicant Types:Legal entities (public or private bodies) established in eligible countries. The call explicitly targets: media organisations (public and private broadcasters), online news and information/content platforms, AI technology companies, language technology providers, content creators and creative partners, European AI Factories, media rights and legal management organisations, research institutions and universities, SMEs, nonprofit organisations, industry partners and other bodies able to onboard media content and operate platform components.

Consortium Requirement:Mandatory consortium of at least five independent legal entities established in five different eligible countries. Affiliated entities, associated partners and subcontractors may participate but affiliated entities do not count towards the minimum. Proposals must be submitted by the consortium; single-beneficiary exceptional structures (sole beneficiary) are addressed in general MGA rules but the call requires minimum five beneficiaries.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility):Entities must be established in eligible countries: EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories where applicable). The call excludes natural persons (except self-employed where legal personality is not separate) and international organisations are not eligible per call rules. Participation may be extended via associated partners and subcontractors, but direct beneficiaries must be in eligible countries.

Eligible activities and non-eligible activities:Eligible activities include technical, organisational, user-facing and sector-engagement activities necessary to develop, integrate, test and prepare uptake of the pan-European infrastructure, such as coordination group operation, API and infrastructure development, AI processing integration and validation, citizen-facing discovery, real-world piloting with KPIs, governance and sustainability planning, capacity building and creative prototyping. Financial support to third parties is not allowed unless expressly declared in the call (the call indicates financial support to third parties is Not allowed). Activities that are advocacy directed at EU institutions or political campaigning are explicitly ineligible.

Funding, financial rules and forms of support

Funding Type:EU grant (PPPA Project Grant). The grant is budget-based (mixed actual cost grant) reimbursing eligible actual costs and may include unit costs, flat-rates and other budget elements as set in the Grant Agreement and Annexes.

Funding Amount:Total call budget: €5,500,000. Indicative number of grants: 1. Maximum requested grant amount expected: up to €5,500,000. EU co-funding rate: up to 80% of eligible costs. The awarded grant may be lower than requested; the Commission may not award all available funds.

Form of grant and cost categories:Budget-based action grant with eligible cost categories: personnel costs (employees, natural persons under contract, seconded persons, SME owners/natural person beneficiaries where applicable), subcontracting, purchase costs including travel and subsistence, equipment (depreciation or specific conditions), other goods/services and indirect costs. Indirect costs reimbursed as flat-rate 7% of eligible direct costs (A-D with exceptions). Rules on VAT, depreciation and specific eligibility conditions are defined in the PPPA Model Grant Agreement and Annex 2 for this call.

Co-funding Requirement:EU co-financing covers up to 80% of eligible costs. Applicants must ensure stable and sufficient resources to implement the project and to contribute their share. Co-funding in the sense of own resources or third-party contributions is expected to cover the non-EU funded portion. No automatic requirement for private match beyond the funding rate, but sustainability and business model planning is evaluated under impact and relevance.

Applicant selection, evaluation and award

Application Type and Submission:Single-stage open call via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal electronic Submission System. Proposals must be submitted online before the deadline using Part A (online) and Part B (upload template as PDF) plus mandatory annexes and supporting documents. Maximum length for Part B: 70 pages. Planned opening date 16 April 2026; deadline 28 May 2026, 17:00 Brussels time.

Application Stages:Single-stage submission with one-step evaluation process and panel evaluation. After evaluation, successful proposals are invited to grant preparation (not a formal commitment to fund until checks are completed).

Evaluation criteria, scoring and thresholds:Award criteria and weights: Relevance 40 points, Quality 40 points, Impact 20 points. Individual threshold per criterion: 60%. Overall threshold: 60 points (out of 100). Award criteria include alignment with call objectives, transnational dimension, quality of consortium and methodology, risk management, cost-effectiveness, expected long-term impact, dissemination plan and sustainability. Detailed scoring and tie-break rules are set in the Call Document.

Evaluation timeline and decision process:Indicative evaluation: June–September 2026. Information on evaluation results expected September 2026. Grant Agreement preparation and signature planned by December 2026. Grant start earliest 1 January 2027, latest 1 March 2027. The evaluation includes admissibility, eligibility, operational capacity checks and award criteria scoring. Reserve lists may be used.

Operational, financial and legal checks

All beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register and will undergo legal entity validation and possible financial capacity checks. Public bodies and projects with requested grant ≤ €60,000 are normally exempted from financial capacity checks. The call document details grounds for exclusion, the need for pre-financing guarantees if required, liability regimes for recoveries and reporting/payment schedules to be specified in the Grant Agreement. The model Grant Agreement PPPA-MGA applies.

Forms, templates and application structure:Applications must be assembled and uploaded using the forms in the Submission System: Application Form Part A (administrative online), Application Form Part B (technical description using portal template, PDF upload). Mandatory annexes to be uploaded via the Portal include a detailed budget table/calculator, CVs (standard max 2 pages) for core team, activity reports for the last year, list of key projects for the last four years, and evidence for legal entity validation. The amounts in the online summarised budget must match the detailed budget table; in case of discrepancies, the online summary prevails. Part B page limit: maximum 70 pages (evaluators will not consider additional pages). The call document provides Part B templates and Annex templates in the Submission System.

Project maturity, target sector and technologies

Target Sector:Media and journalism sector, language technologies, AI-enabled media processing, audiovisual technology, platform and distribution infrastructure, digital public goods and public-interest digital services. Cross-sector players include research institutes, AI providers, cloud/compute providers, archives, creative partners and civil society organisations.

Project Stage and expected outputs:Expected project maturity: demonstration/validation and operational pilot stage focused on near-real-time operations. Outputs include a working pilot infrastructure backbone, interoperable open APIs and building blocks, multilingual AI processing modules (ASR, translation, subtitling, dubbing), discovery and recommendation front ends, provenance and traceability capabilities, KPIs and evaluation reports, onboarding playbooks and governance/sustainability plans.

Technology and science focus areas:Multilingual AI technologies: automatic speech recognition, speech-to-text, neural machine translation with news-domain adaptation, subtitle generation, voice conversion/dubbing, summarisation, classification, named-entity and topic extraction, multimodal processing (audio, video, text, metadata), conversational/agentic access models, annotation and QA tools, provenance tracing and content integrity tools, scalable streaming and content ingestion pipelines, open APIs and interoperable metadata and rights models. Compute and cost-efficiency, latency optimization and human-in-the-loop editorial QA are explicitly highlighted.

Capacity, risks and success considerations

Applicants must demonstrate operational capacity (teams, technical infrastructure, prior comparable projects, ability to onboard media partners) and financial capacity. Proposals should include measurable KPIs (onboarding time, language coverage, latency, usage and cross-border reach, quality and trust indicators) and risk management. Emphasis on inclusion of smaller/local media, machine-readable rights metadata, compliance-by-design with legal and ethical rules, interoperability with Horizon Europe and other EU initiatives, and plans for governance and sustainable business models.

1. 1Risk areas to address in proposals: rights clearance and licensing issues, data protection and privacy, quality and reliability of AI outputs, editorial oversight and human review processes, compute cost and latency, cross-border legal compliance, manipulative distribution dynamics and platform referral pathways.
2. 2Success factors: strong multi-country media consortium, demonstrated AI/media technical capability, realistic operational pilot plan with measurable KPIs, governance and sustainability pathway, clear interdisciplinary editorial and legal safeguards, strong outreach and sector coordination plan.

Assessment of success rates and stages

Application Stages:One stage: single-stage submission; one-step evaluation. Successful applicants are invited to grant preparation which includes legal entity validation, financial capacity checks and possible negotiation of Annex 1 and budget details prior to signature.

Success Rates:No historical success rate is published for this specific single-grant PPPA call. The available budget funds one project; therefore competition will be high and only proposals passing all eligibility and thresholds and ranking highest will be funded. Success rate is therefore expected to be low given one grant slot.

Practical guidance for applicants

1. 1Register all beneficiaries and affiliated entities in the Participant Register well in advance to obtain PICs and complete legal entity validation.
2. 2Follow the Submission System templates exactly: complete Part A online and upload Part B PDF using the portal Part B template and required annex templates from the Submission System.
3. 3Respect the Part B page limit of 70 pages. Prepare concise technical sections tied to award criteria: relevance, quality and impact.
4. 4Provide CVs (max 2 pages) for core team members, activity reports and list of key projects for the last four years.
5. 5Include a detailed budget table/calculator consistent with the online summary budget and justify any significant subcontracting (subcontracting must not cover core tasks).
6. 6Address legal, rights and data protection compliance and include provenance, traceability and quality assurance workflows for AI outputs.
7. 7Design measurable KPIs for pilots and a realistic sustainability and governance plan beyond the grant period.
8. 8Plan outreach and sector coordination activities, and identify concrete synergies with related EU initiatives (e.g. MOSAIC, European Media Data Space, European Language Data Space, European AI Factories).

Co-funding, payments and financial management

Grant payments and reporting arrangements will be defined in the Grant Agreement and Data Sheet. Typical modalities: an initial prefinancing payment (prefinancing guarantee may be required), interim payment(s) with detailed periodic reporting and a final payment after approval of the final periodic report. Reporting includes technical deliverables, financial statements and where applicable certificates on financial statements depending on thresholds. The prefinancing and interim payments together normally may not exceed 80% of the maximum grant amount. The grant is subject to the no-profit rule; beneficiaries must declare revenues and profits will be deducted if applicable.

What this opportunity is about and how to explain it

This PPPA call finances a single pilot project to build and operate a pan-European TV and video news portal infrastructure that combines near-real-time ingestion and streaming of broadcast and news video content, multilingual AI processing (transcription, translation, subtitling and optionally dubbing), multimodal enrichment and public-interest discovery features that improve cross-border access to trusted professional news. The pilot is intended to demonstrate technical feasibility, operational robustness and governance and sustainability pathways for a shared European infrastructure that reduces language barriers, widens access to journalism across Member States, embeds provenance and trust mechanisms, supports smaller local media, provides reusable building blocks and aligns with broader EU AI, language data and media policy objectives. The action is competitive, requires a transnational consortium (minimum five independent entities from five different eligible countries), and will be funded as a budget-based action grant up to €5.5 million with up to 80% co-financing. Applicants must submit a single-stage proposal via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal using the call-specific templates, demonstrate technical and operational capacity, address legal and rights aspects, include measurable KPIs for pilots, and present credible governance and sustainability plans.

Footnotes

1. 1Call Document and full details are available from the Funding & Tenders Portal call fiche and the Call Document PDF published by DG CONNECT Call Document PPPA-2026-CITIZEN-PLATFORM_EN.

Citizen Facing European TV and Video News Portal (PPPA-2026-CITIZEN-PLATFORM-TV)

This call for proposals under the Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions (PPPA) programme seeks to develop and operate a pilot pan-European multilingual AI media infrastructure. The platform will enable near-real-time ingestion, pooling, processing, search, streaming, and cross-border discovery of professional TV and video news, political documentaries, and public-interest content from accredited public and private media in EU Member States. It addresses linguistic fragmentation, reduces dependencies on non-EU intermediaries, and promotes media pluralism and democratic resilience through AI-enabled multilingual access and public-interest safeguards.

Objectives and Expected Impact

The primary objective is to create a shared infrastructure backbone with reusable services, open APIs, and interoperability specifications for near-real-time multilingual processing and distribution of trusted news content. Key expected impacts include strengthening the European media ecosystem, improving findability and accessibility of content across EU languages, enhancing cross-border circulation, supporting smaller media organisations, and delivering reusable open-source components for future scaling.

Scope of Activities

• Core infrastructure: Onboarding diverse media providers, interoperable APIs for ingestion and discovery, operational testing under real-time conditions.
• AI technologies: Transcription, translation, subtitling, dubbing, summarisation, multimodal enrichment, with quality assurance and human oversight.
• Public-interest features: Sector coordination group, transparent search/recommendation systems, provenance tracking, real-world pilots, and sustainability planning.

Eligibility and Consortium Requirements

Open to legal entities (public or private) established in EU Member States, including online news platforms, broadcasters, AI technology companies, media organisations, and rights management entities. Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least 5 independent entities from 5 different EU countries. Natural persons, international organisations (except in specific roles), and EU bodies (except JRC) are ineligible.

Funding Details

Total Budget:€5,500,000 for 1 project.

Funding Rate:Up to 80% of eligible costs.

Project Duration:Up to 24 months (extensions possible with justification). Start date: Earliest 1 January 2027, latest 1 March 2027.

Timeline

1. 1Planned opening: 16 April 2026
2. 2Deadline: 28 May 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time (single-stage submission)
3. 3Evaluation: June-September 2026
4. 4Information on results: September 2026
5. 5Grant agreement signature: December 2026

Evaluation Criteria and Thresholds

Proposals must pass individual thresholds and overall threshold to be considered for funding. Priority given to projects covering uncovered themes, with ties broken by scores in Relevance, Impact, then Quality.

Submission and Admissibility

Electronic submission via EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Part B limited to 70 pages. Required documents: Application Form Parts A/B, detailed budget, CVs of core team, activity reports, list of previous projects. Contact: CNECT-I4@ec.europa.eu for queries.

Key Documents and Resources

Primary source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Call fiche: Call Fiche. Model Grant Agreement: PPPA MGA. Online Manual and FAQs available on the Portal.

Additional Considerations

• Synergies encouraged with projects like MOSAIC, European Media Data Space, and Horizon Europe initiatives.
• Emphasis on inclusive participation of smaller/local media, ethical AI use, transparency, and non-discrimination.
• Financial capacity check required; exclusion applies for bankruptcy, fraud, etc. Subcontracting limited for core tasks.

Applicants should review full conditions in sections 5-10 of the call document, including eligible activities, operational capacity, and legal/financial set-up. Detailed proposal templates available in the Submission System upon opening.