Who wouldn’t want a handy tool to find EU funding for cultural and creative projects with just a few clicks? With the recent launch of CulturEU, the European Commission wants to make EU funding more accessible to anyone in the cultural and creative sector, which has seen better days.
Using the information gathered from the CulturEU guide can also help EUcalls users find culture and creative calls and partners easier.
The Situation of the Cultural and Creative Industries
Cultural and creative industries were among those hit the hardest from the pandemic as a large part of the sector depends on large gatherings. As a result, music festivals, theatres, cinemas, and other venue-based activities were significantly affected, leaving many artists and workers in the sector hanging.
Without knowing when the situation will get better, these professionals are significantly exposed and vulnerable due to the usually non-contractual nature of their work. However, one thing is certain. As the world is still trying to get the pandemic under control, the cultural and creative sector will be the last to open up, at least not in full capacity.
An EU funding guide for cultural and creative projects
The CulturEU is an interactive guide to allow easier access to all available funding opportunities for cultural and creative projects in the EU. It covers opportunities from Creative Europe, the European Commission’s flagship programme, and other EU funding programmes like Digital Europe, LIFE, and EU structural Funds.
Apart from Creative Europe that is known for providing EU funding for cultural and creative projects, the others are not so obvious. The reason is that these EU funding programmes have different priorities. Still, they also issue calls with a more cultural and creative dimension from time to time. As a result, many creative sector professionals interested in EU grants often overlook these opportunities.
On the release of CulturEU, the commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, and Youth, Mariya Gabrial, commented: “The mapping of EU funds done by CulturEU is unprecedented. I hope that this guide will further contribute to making our funds more accessible to all cultural organisations and help them on their way to a sustainable recovery.
How to get funds for cultural projects using CulturEU
Using the CulturEU guide is not difficult at all. Users need to answer a series of simple questions like the sector they work in, the type of organization they represent, and what kind of support they are looking for.
Doing so, they will end up with narrowed-down results from all relevant and available funding sources tailored to their needs. Apart from all EU programmes that provide funding for cultural and creative projects, they also find information on the programmes’ budget, the application process, and links to those programmes or calls.
Find funding for culture projects with EUcalls
Knowing which EU programmes provide funding for culture projects helps interested organizations or individuals to be more focused in their search. This information can also help EUcalls users who wish to find European Calls using our smart platform. In essence, they can use our advanced filters to narrow down their options during their search for culture and creative funding.
For example, knowing which EU programmes provide EU funding for cultural and creative projects, they can focus only on calls under those specific programmes using our filters.
The optimum way to search for calls is by combining those filters with keywords. By typing a relevant keyword to the type of funding they are looking for, they can further narrow down their options. For example, by typing “architect” in the keyword box and selecting the “Digital Europe” programme from the relevant programme filter, all the available calls related to architects under “Digital Europe” will show up.
Conclusion
Artists and professionals in the cultural and creative sectors require further support during the turbulent times created by COVID-19. EU funding opportunities for culture projects could provide a much-needed boost for all creatives.
Using the CulturEU guide and EUcalls, they will not only find calls to fund their culture and creative projects, but they will also find ways to occupy themselves during these idle times and keep their engines of creativity and imagination running.
