Press Releases for EU-Funded Projects: Information and Publicity Obligations Explained

Why information and publicity obligations exist

Public money from the European Union is meant to be visible. People who pay taxes into the EU budget, and communities that benefit from funded projects, have a legitimate interest in knowing what is being financed and what it achieves. For this reason funding programmes generally include rules about how beneficiaries must communicate about the support they receive.

In practice, these rules are known as information and publicity obligations, or visibility requirements. They cover things such as acknowledging the funding, displaying a funding emblem, informing the public about the project's aims and results, and keeping evidence of what was done. Press releases are one of the most common tools for meeting them, because they are relatively inexpensive, can be published online and leave a verifiable record. Specialist EU funding press release publishing exists precisely because beneficiaries need both the publication and the documentation.

This article gives general orientation for beneficiaries who need an EU-funded project press release. It does not describe the requirements of any single programme and does not quote regulations. Obligations differ between funds, programmes, calls and project types, and they can be updated, so treat your funding contract and the current programme manual as the authority. If you want a step-by-step list, our publicity checklist for an EU-funded project follows the project from launch to closure.

Typical publicity measures in funded projects

Programmes differ, but several types of measure recur. Use the list below as a prompt for what to look for in your own documents, not as a statement of what is required for your project.

• Acknowledging the funding in all communication, usually with a standard sentence and the funder's emblem.
• A project page on the beneficiary's website, with a short description, objectives and funding information.
• Press releases or press events at key moments such as the launch and the completion.
• Posters, plaques or billboards at the project location, especially for infrastructure or investments.
• Social media posts and newsletters that mention the funding.
• Documents and materials (reports, leaflets, publications) carrying the required acknowledgement.
• Records proving that the actions took place.

Whether a press release is compulsory, optional or recommended depends on the programme and on the size and type of the project. A beneficiary should read the relevant section, note the deadlines and plan the communication calendar together with the project timeline.

What a launch press release usually contains

A launch release serves two audiences: the general public, which wants to know what is happening, and the funder, which wants to see that the publicity obligation was met. A text that satisfies both is straightforward to write if you build it from the same elements every time.

1. A clear headline naming the beneficiary and the project.
2. A lead stating what the project will do, where and for whom, and the period it covers.
3. The funding statement. The wording and the emblem or logos come from the programme's identity guidance. Do not paraphrase the standard sentence unless the guidance allows it.
4. Objectives and expected results, described factually. Avoid promising outcomes beyond those in the application.
5. Key figures that appear in the contract, such as duration and, if public, the value of the project. Take them from the contract itself.
6. A quote from a representative of the beneficiary.
7. Contact details and a link to the project page.

The craft of the opening is covered in the press release headline and lead; the general structure in our press release guide. For funded projects, one extra rule helps: do not copy sentences from the application form. They are written for evaluators, not for the public.

Choosing where to publish: national or local media

Where the release appears should follow who the project is for. A school renovation in a small town matters most to residents of that town and region. A programme to help small manufacturers adopt new equipment matters to business readers, who can be reached through business and sector publications. A national site makes sense when the project has national scope or wide public interest.

Publishing on more than one type of site often gives a better picture than relying on a single outlet. Regional outlets are read by the community, business sites by potential partners and customers. If you want to see the types of sites available, the portfolio groups publications into categories, including local and regional news and business.

The decision also has a practical side. Look for outlets that keep their articles at a stable address, state clearly what they publish and make their pages readable for everyone. These qualities make it easier to prove, later, that the action took place. A publisher cannot guarantee that a project complies with its funding rules, but it can provide the page and a report of where it went live.

Wording the funding statement and the visual identity

Mistakes are most common not in the story but in the acknowledgement. Funders define exactly how their emblem and sentence should look, and they usually publish this in a visual identity or communication manual for beneficiaries. It may specify the emblem's size, placement, colours and accompanying text, and may differ between print and web.

Some practical points follow:

• Get the current manual from the programme or managing authority, not from an old project. Manuals are revised.
• Use the exact sentence provided, adding project-specific details only where the manual allows it.
• Keep the emblem unaltered. Do not recolour or crop it.
• Send publishers the official files (logo, emblem) along with the text, so that they do not have to find lower-quality copies.
• Re-check after publication. Confirm that the funding statement and emblem appear in the published page as agreed.

If any element is unclear, ask the project officer in writing and keep their answer in the project file. Our own role, as a publisher of EU funding press releases, is to place the text you give us at a permanent address; deciding which wording the programme requires remains with the beneficiary and the funder.

Who should write and approve the text

Funded projects often involve several parties: the beneficiary, partners, a project manager and sometimes an external consultant. A press release can stall if nobody owns it. It helps to decide early who drafts, who checks facts, who approves the funding statement and who is allowed to speak to the media.

A workable split is simple. The project manager drafts the facts, a communication officer or external writer shapes the text, the legal or financial lead checks figures and the funding statement, and the head of the organisation approves any quotes. If partners are named, send them the draft so that their names, roles and logos are correct.

Write for a general reader. Funding jargon, programme codes and acronyms may be necessary somewhere in the text, but the first paragraph should make sense to a person who has never heard of the programme. Explain what will change for the community, the customers or the sector, and be careful not to claim results that the project has not yet achieved. If the release is published in Romanian media, the text should be in clear Romanian; if the project also needs an English version for partners, prepare it separately rather than relying on automatic translation.

Evidence: keep the proof of publication

Publicity is only useful for compliance if you can demonstrate it. For each release, save the live URL, a dated screenshot, a PDF of the page and any report from the publisher, and log them in an index. We set out the full routine in proof of publication: what to keep for the project file.

Plan the evidence at the same time as the release. A beneficiary who captures every page on the publication day, names the files clearly and checks the URL again every few months is less likely to have a problem at a monitoring visit. One who tries to rebuild the record two years later often struggles.

A simple communication calendar

Funded projects usually benefit from a short plan that sets the communication moments at the start. The following is a generic outline, not a requirement of any programme.

Link the calendar to the project timeline, so that communication is not left until the final weeks. If you also want to build wider awareness, beyond what is mandatory, an informative article can complement a release; our piece on how many links to put in an advertorial shows how to keep such articles useful rather than promotional.

Mistakes beneficiaries make

• Using an outdated manual or logos from a previous programming period.
• Publishing a text with no funding statement and discovering it afterwards.
• Making promotional claims unrelated to the project's actual objectives.
• Naming people or using photographs without their agreement.
• Publishing once and never again, so that nothing documents the later phases.
• Not checking the final page for the correct emblem and text.

The common cause is leaving communication to the end. A short plan, a responsible person and a checklist solve most of these problems.

Next step: check the rules, then publish

Begin with your own documents: contract, programme manual and visual identity guidance. Then write a factual release that includes the required acknowledgement and publish it somewhere stable. If you want help with the last stage, our EU funding press release service places your finished text on the sites in our portfolio and provides the URLs of the published articles for your file.

This article is general information, not legal or financial advice. For questions about what your programme requires, contact your project officer or managing authority.

Frequently asked questions