Deadline: Ongoing
Open to: independent artistic or cultural organisation based in the Western Balkans
European cultural foundation is looking for projects that have the potential to inspire people to transcend boundaries in this process. ECF grants programme stimulates transnational cultural collaboration, artistic expression and the mobility of artists and cultural actors. Our various grants schemes relate to different ECF focus areas and to specific regions of the European continent.
Guiding Principles
1. Empowerment of People through Art and Culture – support different
communities in Europe and encourage the exchange and empowerment of underrepresented groups.
2. Connecting Sources of Knowledge – sharing and connecting knowledge is vital in creating an open Europe.
3. Linking Policy and Practice – projects that help build this open Europe by contributing to cultural policy development locally, nationally, regionally and at European level.
Eligibility Criteria
The Balkan Incentive Fund for Culture supports artistic and cultural work within the Western
Balkans, created either by organisations in the region or in collaboration with the region. The
focus of the grant is to strengthen relations across the Western Balkans (Albania,
Bosnia‐Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) and Europe, in order
to stimulate the European Union integration process. All applications need to be in line with all
the eligibility criteria.
Who is Eligible
• Lead applicant: independent artistic or cultural organisation based in the Western
Balkans; independent artistic or cultural organisation based in other parts of Europe in
collaboration with an independent organisation in the Balkan region.
• Partnering applicant: same as above.
What is Eligible
There are six different eligibility criteria. All of them are equally important to ECF, hence
applications must to be in line with all eligibility criteria. Proposals which do not meet these criteria will not be considered.
Partnership working methodology
The applicant/s must be an independent cultural and/or artistic organisation from the
Western Balkans. The project may also be organised by a cultural organisation in
Europe (following the 47 countries of the Council of Europe) in partnership with an
indepenadent cultural orgnisationfrom the Western Balkan region.
Cultural focus
The project should have a strong cultural objective and a concrete end product. In this
sense, we support a variety of activities: the creation of artistic work, media projects or
cultural policy development including capacity building of cultural actors.
European dimension
The project must be carried out by, or with, a indepeandent cultural or artistic organisation from
the Western Balkans, and the project must have European dimension.
Sustainability
• The project must have a clear end‐result that can be evaluated.
• Ideally, the project is a starting point for sustainable cooperation between the partners.
Timeframe
• The project activities should only start after ECF’s funding decision has been ma
(please check the exact planning for this grant scheme on the ECF grants websit
section)
• The project must be completed 18 months after the contract has been signed.
Financial
• ECF can support up to 80% (max) of the total budget. We encourage applicant
organisations and their partners to demonstrate their own contributions and to apply to
other funders. This should be demonstrated in the budget outline.
• ECF provides an average collaboration grant of Euro 15,000. The maximum grant
awarded is Euro 30,000.
• ECF specifically welcomes involvement of local funding partners, as we believe this
contributes to embedding the project in the local context.
• ECF may select your project even if your remaining budget is not secured when
applying. Payment of the ECF grant will be conditional on an agreed percentage of other
funding having been secured at least one month before the start date of your project.
After you have submitted your application, the eligible applications are first evaluated by the grants team. The pre‐selection is distributed among a group of external advisors, from the Balkan region and with different fields of expertise. Each proposal is assessed by two different advisors. After this assessment, ECF makes a decision on which projects are selected, and what will be the amount of the grant. Both awarded and rejected applicants are notified by e‐mail within three months after submitting their proposal. Decisions are final.
for more information visit Official website
