The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has announced a $3.15 million grant to the International Center for Journalists in support of the center's Knight International Journalism Fellowships program.

The funds will support continued efforts to foster a global culture of news innovation by enabling Knight Fellows to partner with newsrooms, start-ups, and other organizations working to engage and inform the public through technology. In addition, Knight Fellows will share lessons from the field through a new blog on the International Journalists' Network's Web site.

The fellowships program has attracted an additional $7 million in funding since 2010, including $3.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for health journalism fellowships designed to help African journalists tell compelling stories about health and economic development issues unfolding on the continent.

"Through the years, ICFJ has been one of our largest grantees for a reason: When we support the center, we know that it will have a real impact informing and engaging communities across the world," said Knight Foundation president Alberto Ibargüen. "We see that impact in the investigative reporting teams founded in the Middle East during the Arab Spring, in the crowdsourced maps of corruption in Latin America, and in other ICFJ projects that match digital tools with the power of local journalism."