Southeast Asia Impact Seed Fund 2026 (ISF) - ENGLISH APPLICATION

It is mandatory for applicants to read through our full version guidelines (PDF format) in this link: English Guideline

Impact Seed Funding (ISF) 2026

Southeast Asia

Guidelines

Regions: Countries in Southeast Asia  

Key Topics:  Rainforest, Ocean, Transparency & Governance

The Pulitzer Center Impact Seed Fund (ISF) supports educational and engagement initiatives working with issues highlighted in the Pulitzer Center-supported journalism, addressing the most critical issues confronting our planet's ecosystems and communities. The 2026 Southeast Asia ISF focuses on a range of topics, including Rainforest, Ocean and Transparency & Governance. 

Impact Seed Fund (ISF) is a microscale grant provided by the Pulitzer Center to support education, research, or scientific activities with the aim to enrich the perspectives and knowledge within the university community—specifically students and educators. ISF facilitates a deeper understanding of complex problems and encourages the exploration of solutions and innovations to address the impact of human activities on rainforests, oceans, and the climate crisis.

We aim to support projects that inspire changes in perspectives, narratives, and actions, fostering a more informed and empathetic community. By utilizing Pulitzer Center-supported stories, the ISF initiative aims to:

1. Improve the awareness and critical thinking of students and educators about complex issues related to tropical forests, oceans, climate crisis, including their impacts on vulnerable communities. It encourages members of the university community to explore innovative solutions to address these impacts.
2. Equip students and educators to take action and drive change to protect the environment, as well as the rights of those most affected by environmental destruction.

Utilizing stories as the center of the proposed projects: The Pulitzer Center’s different programs have produced journalism stories that bring to light local perspectives, often from voices that are rarely heard. These reports focus on underreported stories and situations that are crucial to better understand the challenges around tropical forests, climate change and  ocean. These reports produce high-quality visuals, in-depth analysis, and data resources capable of conveying complex issues in a powerful and digestible way, making them excellent educational and communications tools. As such, they can generate important inputs for ISF-funded projects. All proposals must utilize at least one story reported by Pulitzer Center-supported journalists and explain how it will be relevant in the project. 

Who can apply?

1. Applicants should be university professors or researchers based in an institution
2. Applicants are welcome to propose a project  through a consortia of educators from universities in one or more regions of the country. 

Objective

We believe in the power of knowledge—the role of researchers and faculty in addressing multidisciplinary issues on social and environmental topics. Therefore, the ISF is designed to provide seed funding to faculty and researchers in various regions to raise awareness of important issues in their communities worldwide and contribute to desired positive change. The ISF provides micro-scale support for:

1.  Integrating Journalism into Teaching and Research

Supports the integration and critical reflection of insights from Pulitzer Center-supported journalistic stories, including creative materials such as documentary films, photographs, podcasts, infographics, and data visualizations, into curricula, teaching syllabus course materials or lesson plans, student engagement, research design, and scholarly publications.

2. Informing Research , Scientific Panel, and Public Dialogues 

Use insights from Pulitzer Center-supported stories - including findings, datasets, and methodologies - as evidence to inform academic research, comparative studies, scientific dialogues, and decisionmaking processes.

3. Strengthen Cross-Sector Collaboration

Use Pulitzer Center-supported journalism to foster and expand sustained collaboration among universities, journalists, Indigenous and affected communities, and local institutions. Ground these partnerships in shared priorities to advance meaningful dialogue, facilitate exchange of ideas across knowledge systems,and support locally relevant responsive solution

ISF Southeast Asia grants 

range from USD $3,000 to $4,000. We expect projects to be implemented within four - five months of approval.  

What ISF Funds

• Collaborative projects with journalists supported by the Pulitzer Center or multidisciplinary faculty groups.
• Collaborative projects with the most impacted local communities (CSOs, Indigenous Peoples), examples of activities include field surveys, knowledge exchange activities, immersive learning for students, biodiversity expeditions, and citizen journalism training.
• Integration of Pulitzer Center-supported journalism elements into teaching materials, new learning modules, courses or syllabi, campus debates, hackathons on social issues, student-led debates, and dialogues
• Support for multi-stakeholder dialogue, focus group discussions with relevant policy makers, webinar series, seminars.
• Production and distribution of pulitzer center-supported stories- inspired visual content to support learning aids (short videos, documentaries, podcasts)
• Small exhibitions on campus, such as a photo exhibition or film screening featuring issues raised in the coverage at the Pulitzer Center.
• Journalism workshop for student press clubs
• Communication activities to raise public awareness regarding issues and topics raised in coverage supported by the Pulitzer Center.
• Support for research activities: rapid studies, white papers, policy recommendations.
• Support for seminars, symposia, and scholarly activities that foster collaboration and synergy among researchers on issues raised in Pulitzer Center-supported reporting.

Who can apply?

• Applicants must be university lecturers or researchers affiliated with an academic institution.
• Applicants can propose projects in consortium with lecturers from one or more universities.

Requirements

● Proposals must engage and utilize at least one story by a Pulitzer Center-supported journalist. Please refer to the guideline's appendix 1 for a curated list of available coverage for Southeast Asia. If applicants wish to explore coverage independently, please follow the instructions below:

o For the Rainforest topic:: Applicants need to explore the stories of Rainforest Investigations Network And Rainforest Reporting Initiative.

o For OceanOcean topics: Applicants need to explore stories from Ocean Reporting Network .

o  For the topic of Transparency and Governance : Transparency and Governance | Pulitzer Center

o  Examples include: collaboration with Pulitzer Center network journalists in the design of activities after a proposal is approved; utilization of key data/information from journalists' story in proposal outcomes or activities.

● The activity must have the intended impact on audiences in the academic community (students or lecturers/researchers) and civil society that aligns with one or both of the following outcomes:

• Improve the awareness and critical thinking of students and educators about complex issues related to tropical forests, the ocean, and the climate crisis, including their impacts on vulnerable communities, and encourage the exploration of solutions and innovations to address these impacts.
• Equip students and educators to take action and drive changes to foster protection of the social and environment discourse as well as the rights of those most affected by socio-environmental destruction.

● Ideally, projects will collaborate with the most impacted communities; for example, co-designing ideas with indigenous communities, community leaders, or local organizations that work directly with vulnerable communities; collaboration with small universities in the local area.

●  The project must demonstrate a strong Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion approach. DEI statement from the Pulitzer Center for more information.

Project Timeline - Southeast Asia

Proposal Submission : May 3, 2026 (Washington DC time)

Selection Process: May 14 - May 22

Announcement: May 28

For more information, please contact the responsible managers:

Grenti Paramitha (Southeast Asia region): gparamitha@pulitzercenter.org