Regional and local news publishers are being invited to apply for a new round of funding aimed at helping digital projects to get off the ground.

Google has announced it is welcoming applications for the latest round of grants from its Digital News Innovation Fund.

Since it was launched three years ago the fund has supported more than 559 projects, with more than €115.2m being given to news organizations across 30 countries.

In July, Cardiff University’s Centre for Community Journalism has secured €250,000 from the fund for a scheme aimed at helping hyperlocal publishers to develop tools which will help them track and make money from stories they publish.

Other recent recipients include Archant, Caerphilly Media Ltd and the Irish News.

There are three categories of funding available: Prototype (up to €50,000 of funding), Medium (up to €300,000) and Large (between €300,000 and €1m in funding)

A Google spokesman said: “For this round, we’re looking for creative approaches that seek to build sustainable business models for news—whether that’s diversification of revenue streams, creative applications of technology to save costs, boosting all aspects of reader revenue (e.g. subscriptions, memberships, contributions, etc) or designing new ways of thinking around monetisation through products and user engagement.

“Applicants whose project falls under the medium and large categories will need to ensure their proposal comes with clearly identified monetisation opportunities. The prototype track does not have this requirement and can remain focused on innovation only.”

More information can be found here.