The Independent, in association with the Rupert Cornwell Trust, has opened applications for its third annual award in honour of the distinguished foreign correspondent and writer.

A bursary of £5,000 is being made available to one individual to fund a suitable journalistic project. Although the remit is quite wide, it must be a foreign assignment in one of the broad regions Rupert Cornwell covered throughout his long career – North America, Europe or the former Soviet Union.

The application should comprise the following:

A pitch of around 800 words detailing how the funds will be used; the volume and type of material that will be generated; and its worth as journalism

Where appropriate, a selection of three published articles or other pieces of work (but equal consideration will be given to applicants with little or no established track record)

A personal or professional reference

In the spirit of the earlier part of Rupert’s career in particular, applicants need not have studied journalism but should possess enquiring minds, a gift for storytelling and an elegance of prose style.

The following formal eligibility criteria will apply:

Applicants should be under 30 on 1 January 2020

They should be based in Britain or America (but need not be US or UK nationals)

The journalism produced should satisfy these criteria:

It must be in English

It must be substantially in the form of the written word as articles, with use of other media also encouraged

Originality

It may constitute one article, but will more likely constitute a series of articles

It should be completed within six months of the start of the project at most, and in any case by 1 November 2020

The funding may be staggered as goals are met

Overall it should amount to about 10,000 words, plus other material as appropriate

There will be a panel of judges drawn from Rupert’s many colleagues and chaired by Susan Cornwell, US congressional correspondent for Reuters.

The work is intended for publication by The Independent and all copyright will rest with The Independent. No additional fees or expenses will be provided and travel costs are included in the bursary. The first winner, Rachel Savage, produced work of outstanding quality, and the kind of journalism that impressed the judges, as did last year’s recipient, Lemma Shehadi.

The work will be covered by The Independent’s usual terms for contributors, including the code of conduct.