The newspaper publisher Evgeny Lebedev has pulled the plug on a high-profile initiative his family launched to train journalists, promote "free and independent journalism" and expose corruption, the Guardian can reveal.

After less than a year, the Journalism Foundation has been wound up. Its London offices are due to close this week and its staff are expected to be laid off.

The venture, with headquarters in Mayfair, cost £600,000 with no significant legacy. The closure will dash the hopes of those who bought into Lebedevs' vision of an organisation that could fund investigative journalism around the world.

Last year Evgeny, head of the UK publishing operation including the Independent and the Evening Standard, said he envisaged that the "biggest titles around the world ... pool resources to uncover the schemes and money flows used to sustain massive corruption".

But the Lebedev family has been under political and financial pressure after it emerged in September that Alexander had been charged with hooliganism and battery a year after punching a business rival in the face live on television. The hooliganism charge is the same one levelled against Pussy Riot, the punk protest band jailed for two years after performing anti-Putin songs in a Moscow cathedral.

The journalistic initiative was seen as credible. It was led by Simon Kelner, former editor-in-chief of the Independent, and linked to the prestigious journalism course at London's City University. But it relied on funds becoming available other than those pumped into the project by the Lebedevs. It is understood that other sources of finance were more difficult to find than had been expected.

A spokesman for Evgeny Lebedev confirmed that a decision to close the foundation had been taken reluctantly, but said it had proved "very difficult" to raise financing from third parties to supplement the initial grant from the family. The spokesman added that the family planned to support journalistic projects direct from their charitable foundation.

In May the Journalism Foundation held a gala – entitled "A priceless evening" – to raise funds for its global projects, including the establishment of a college of journalism in Tunisia and a programme to train journalists in South Sudan. Celebrities lent their names and gave time to support the project.

The evening, held at auction house Phillips de Pury, was hosted by the broadcaster Richard Bacon and featured comedians Alexander Armstrong and Tim Minchin, and ventriloquist Paul Zerdin. A fundraising auction sold off lunch with Gillian Anderson cooked by Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, tickets and flights to the world premiere of The Hobbit in New Zealand and a rendezvous with Nancy Dell'Olio.

The project had also recruited big names as trustees, including the former Thatcherite heavyweight Lord Fowler, the former BBC and Barbican chief Sir John Tusa and the human right barrister Baroness Kennedy.

In its short life, the foundation supported a number of small projects, including a grassroots website seeking to increase engagement in local politics in Stoke-on-Trent. It also promoted radio training and a project to increase community journalism in Brixton and rural Tanzania.

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