This announcement is directed at trainee journalists (max. age: 29) in the cultural and economic departments from Croatia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Northern Italy, Hungary and Austria, i.e. the countries in which UNIQA is particularly active. For the first time, young journalists from Germany are also invited to take part. Online applications are possible via the homepage (see address above) or by post. Applicants should send their CV and a statement of motivation in English, which is the official language at the event, a sample text is required. An expert jury will nominate the final 20 participants from all the applications received. Their names will be announced at the end of June.

All costs for the seminar, in addition to travel and accommodation expenses, will be borne by UNIQA.

“When we decided to support the Salzburg Festival, we promised to be an active partner. The UNIQA College for Journalists represents a joint involvement in art and culture and the common motivating platform for the Festival’s and UNIQA’s Eastern European strategies. We want to demolish cultural, but also local borders, especially with regard to the EU’s Eastern European enlargement, and the lasting success of the first two seminars of the training college shows that we are also succeeding,” commented Konstantin Klien on UNIQA’s involvement in Salzburg’s traditional festival.

Helga Rabl-Stadler, President of the Salzburg Festival adds: “The UNIQA College for Journalists is a wonderful project, a real success story which is already heading into its third year. Particularly in the year of the EU’s Eastern European enlargement, UNIQA’s involvement is pathbreaking.”

In summer 2002, UNIQA invited 20 young journalists from Austria and Central and Eastern Europe to Salzburg for the first training seminar of its kind. The project was initiated at that time as a valuable complement to the company’s sponsoring of the Salzburg Festival. Today, the UNIQA College for Journalists has advanced to become an integral part of the fringe events at the Salzburg Festival. It is not only held in high regard by the participants but also enjoys considerable support from the festival team. In October last year, the UNIQA College for Journalists received particular recognition when it was nominated for the “2003 State Prize for Public Relations”.

The Programme
The event offers the participants a balanced programme between theoretical journalistic lectures and practical experience. “The goal of the one-week training seminar is to provide the young media representatives with comprehensive insight into the various areas of the major cultural and economic event, the Salzburg Festival, on the one hand, and on the other, to familiarise them with modern forms of journalism and state-of-the-art methods, thus putting “tools” into their hands for their daily work,” according to Konstantin Klien. The programme includes workshops with well-known Austrian and international representatives from the fields of cultural and economic journalism, professional discussions with the Festival’s top managers, artistic directors and selected artists from theatre and opera, in addition to a glimpse “behind the scenes”.

Preparation
The UNIQA sister companies are intensively involved in the preparation for the College.Publicity, the invitation of applicants and selection of participants is the task of the national companies. On the one hand, contacts between representatives of the company in each country and the participants from the years 2002 and 2003 continue to be used, while on the other, connections with journalists’ organisations, PR associations and media are established, in order to inform potential participants about the possibility of applying for this year’s College.

In Austria, UNIQA relies on two partners who have been actively involved in its planning, preparation and execution since the project’s early beginnings– the future bytes (www.futurebytes.at) team is responsible for homepage design and promotion, programme design and care of the participants during the event. The local partner is SMBS (Salzburg Management GmbH - University of Salzburg Business School), who offer the best qualifications for compiling a comprehensive “cultural timetable” for the College participants, with cultural events of all kinds off the beaten track of the Salzburg Festival.