What is Fondation EurActiv PoliTech ?

Eight years after its establishment Fondation EurActiv became a public service foundation, dedicated to hosting and training independent media, by Royal Decree of 29 March 2012 and published in the Official Gazette of Belgium on 16 April. Its official name has changed to "Fondation EurActiv Politech" in recognition of the integration of Politech Institute AISBL from 01/01/2011 – see link.
 
The foundation acts primarily to bring together individuals and organisations seeking to shape or influence European Union policies. Its aim is ‘faciliter l’efficacité et la transparence de la Communauté des Acteurs Européens’.

What does Fondation do?

• Hosting media & Supporting media independence • Work stations, meeting rooms and a conference room are used daily by members of the EurActiv Network and visitors. Around 30 stakeholder workshops on topical EU policy issues are organised and moderated annually. An Advisory Group of over 20 distinguished people is consulted individually and collectively on issues of media independence. In 2012, examples of such activities included providing input and feedback on revisions to the Editorial Mission and the Statutes of the Fondation; some members also sat on an international jury to select young journalists from outside the EurActiv Network for the EU Journalism Fellowship.
• EU Journalism Fellowship and Training • Training is provided to EurActiv team members in Brussels as well as to journalists from beyond Belgium. Since 2004, most of the EurActiv Network team of around 95 people have received training. Since 2011, 38 young journalists selected from third-party media and coming from a dozen different EU countries received on the job training on EU reporting, a programme realised with the generous support of the Robert Bosch Stiftung (since 2011), Open Society in 2012 and Fondation Hippocrène (in 2013).
• EU Community & Social Media • includes the political technologies (e-Politics, e-Participation, e-Democracy, e-Diplomacy, e-Citizenship, e-Governance and e-Government) of Fondation EurActiv PoliTech and the EurActiv Network aims to reinvent politics and governance in cyberspace. It also manages the European affairs blogging platform BlogActiv.eu, Social Media, and the EU Community project. It also handles the stakeholders and EU projects that are dealing with these issues in collaboration and with the full support of the other departments and affiliates of the EurActiv family. EU Community is the most recent innovation: to help develop the next era of policy-making  (see brochure). 

How is Fondation organised?

HOSTING & SUPPORTING MEDIA & RELATED		TRAINING JOURNALISTS & RELATED		COMMUNITY & SOCIAL MEDIA DEPARTMENT
BRUSSELS NETWORK OFFICE (ALL EURACTIV NETWORK PARTNERS, including EurActiv.com		NETWORK-INTERNAL TRAININGS STAGIAIRES / INTERNS TRAINEE PROGRAMME EU JOURNALISM FELLOWSHIP FACILITATING FACULTY & SPEAKER PROVISION		BLOGACTIV PLATFORM POLITECH: projects in e-Governement & e-Participation, with public funding EU COMMUNITY: PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP - integrating people and policies

What is Fondation planning to do ?

Fondation EurActiv PoliTech is an active partner and member of Steering and Scientific Committees in prominent international events, such as: 

• Global Cities Dialogue and point of contact for Belgian Cities and European Institutions
• The Annual Global Forum, Shaping the Future (World)
• The Eastern European eGovernment Days, Prague (Czech Rep.) and Ljubljana (Slovenia)
• The International Conference on eDemocracy and Open Government (Austria)
• The World eGov Forum, Issy-les-Moulineaux (France)
• The Annual European eDemocracy Award was also created and managed by Fondation in the framework of The World eGov Forum, Issy-les-Moulineaux (France)
• Fondation also provides people and other resources for the 3 major strategic projects currently being pursued by the EurActiv family: Communications support for 2014 European parliament elections; Future EU and EU Community (two projects described here)
   

How is Fondation managed?

Fondation is guided by an Orientation Committee composed of between five and forty members, and by a smaller management board composed in a majority by members of the Orientation Committee.

List of Orientation Committee as at 1 July 2013

Fondation is guided by an Advisory Council. The names of the distinguished persons who have agreed to serve are shown below.

List of Advisory Council members as at 1 July 2013

Fondation Finances

How is it financed and where do funds go?

The Fondation has three main sources of income:

1. grants awarded by grant-making organisations, e.g. Robert Bosch Stiftung, Organisation International de la Francophonie, Fondation Hippocrène
2. grants made by the EU institutions for communication and demonstration projects, e.g. Open Discovery Space, Citadel on the Move
3. payments (for services provided) to media organisations, notably members of the EurActiv Network.

NB apart from limited re-imbursement of services invoiced and provided, neither EurActiv.com nor any other Euractiv affiliate may receive any monies from grants given to the Fondation.

In 2012 grants were received from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), Robert Bosch Stiftung and the European Commission, amounting to more than €370,000.

The main costs include salaries and associated charges, rent, depreciation and utility charges, communications and other routine office administration expenses.

Summary Results since 2004

The complete annual accounts of Fondation are filed with the Belgian Central Bank, as required under Fondation statutes.
 

How to contact Fondation?

Fondation operates from the International Press Centre Building, Boulevard Charlemagne, close to the main EU institutional headquarters, in the heart of the Brussels European quarter.

You can contact Fondation EurActiv PoliTech using this contact form and selecting the Fondation category.