Call: Pan-European Cultural Entities

In 2021, the CULTURE strand of Creative Europe will continue to be anchored to policy development and EU policy cooperation in the field of culture, notably in line with the objectives of the 2018 New European Agenda for Culture and the Council Work Plan for Culture 2019-2022. Policy cooperation will also cover emerging priorities and high-level initiatives such as the New European Bauhaus.

The Programme will mainstream through its actions the cross-cutting issues of inclusion and diversity, notably gender balance, and greening of Creative Europe.

In this context, the Programme intends to pursue the following priorities:

• Resilience and recovery: in 2021, more than 80 million EUR will be allocated to support cooperation projects, circulation of Literary works, platforms and networks in the culture field. These actions are meant to be instruments to help the recovery and resilience of the cultural and creative sectors in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Through these actions, the Programme will support a wide range of projects and initiatives to help cultural operators, artists and workers in the culture field get out from the crisis, with creative ideas and together with partners from all over Europe.
• Innovation and joint creations: innovation, in a broad sense, is necessary for the evolution of the cultural and creative sectors and their competiveness. Innovations can be of technological and artistic nature; they may include the joint creation and production of innovative European works and their dissemination to a wide and diverse audience. Innovations also include the development and experimentation of new practices or models, as well as the transfer and dissemination of innovative practices from more advanced European regions or sectors to other regions in Europe or disciplines. Areas of innovation can encompass a social or societal dimension such as audience engagement/development, gender equality or the inclusion of people with disabilities, people belonging to minorities and people belonging to socially marginalised groups, fighting climate change, digitisation, etc.;
• Cooperation and exchanges of practices: the Programme will give organisations of all sizes the possibility to cooperate and learn at cross-border level. The cooperation between organisations active in cultural and creative sectors will contribute to: building the capacities of the organisations involved; giving rise to many artistic creations; helping the circulation and dissemination of artists and works; increasing the initiatives that allow more people to participate in cultural activities and projects;
• Capacity-building of artists: the Programme will help European artists and cultural and creative professionals move up to the European level by supporting (emerging) talents, skills development, innovation and the transnational creation and circulation of European works. Creative Europe will support platforms which increase the visibility and the circulation of European emerging artists and works in Europe and beyond. It will also support actions that promote the circulation of European literary works, thus allowing groupings of publishers and/or other partners from the book sector (booksellers, libraries, etc.) to foster cooperation between publishers and their partners and bring more impact on the local and national book ecosystem;
• Key players and multipliers: the Programme will invest in activities that encourage the scaling up of Europe’s cultural and creative sectors at European and global levels, for instance by supporting their international presence, marketing and branding. It will support Europe-wide or international networks of organisations and individual artists that help developing creative capacities of artists and industry professionals; collect and disseminate data, information, practices, ideas and solutions; provide training and advices to professionals; represent the sectors at national and European level and advocate on their behalf on key sectoral issues.

From an operational point of view, the Programme will reinforce its sectoral approach: this is a new feature of the CULTURE strand of the Programme. Through this new approach, it will be possible to define more targeted annual sector-specific priorities for music, publishing, cultural heritage and architecture.

Furthermore, the Programme will continue the cooperation with international organisations active in the field of culture that bring added value to the achievement of the Programme's objectives, bringing in competence in specific areas to maximize the impact of the Programme's action.

Special actions

In 2021, the CULTURE strand of Creative Europe will continue to support the organisation of four yearly European prizes in the areas of music, literature, architecture and cultural heritage. The winners of the prizes will be from countries participating to the Creative Europe Programme.

European Capitals of Culture remain a flagship EU action with a positive effect on local economies and societies. Building on the exceptional cultural richness and great diversity of Europe and its cities and regions, this action aims in particular at increasing citizens' sense of belonging to a common cultural area and at fostering the contribution of culture to the long-term development of cities.

The European Heritage Label remains one of the most valuable EU initiatives to strengthen the European citizens’ sense of belonging to the Union, the focus on the European dimension of cultural heritage sites and the common values they represent being a distinctive feature of the action.

In 2021, the Programme foresees to initiate a special action supporting European cultural entities such as orchestras that aim at training and promoting young, high potential artists and have an inclusive approach with a large geographical coverage. This support shall complement horizontal and sectorial actions in particular in favour of entities whose specific added value lies in the special selection process of such artists and the encompassing training and performance opportunities offered to them.

Objective

This action will support projects proposed by cultural entities - in the case of this Call - orchestras with artists from at least 20 countries - whose aim is to offer training, professionalization and performance opportunities for young high potential artists.

The goals of this action are to:

• enhance the visibility of European cultural diversity and cultural heritage,
• foster the emergence of artistic excellence and the achievement of the highest possible standard of orchestral performance,
• support the activities of organisations and artists who act as promoters and ambassadors of EU cultural values,
• foster participation and access to high-level artistic creation for young and new audiences,
• foster the sector’s capacity to be resilient and prepared to take advantage of the opportunities offered by digital technologies for both professional development of artists and performances’ accessibility.

Expected results

This action is expected to support 3 to 5 projects.

By implementing a coherent set of activities, these projects will allow the professionalization of young talented European musicians who should be nationals/residents from at least 20 countries participating in the Programme during the project lifespan. The proposal should allow the involvement of these young professionals in high standard orchestral performances, professionalisation and training opportunities.

Working at the threshold between traditional and innovative formats, between artistic excellence and social engagement, Pan-European Cultural Entities will foster new and young audiences’ participation and access to cultural life, allowing a direct experience of orchestral music.

The excellence of their artistic proposals, the richness and diverse geographical origins of the involved musicians, the attachment to European musical heritage and the capacity to engage in major public events at different levels: these features should all contribute to develop and consolidate Pan-European cultural entities’ role as promoters and ambassadors of the European Union’s values.

The level of expected impact will be assessed under the award criterion “dissemination”.

Description of the activities to be funded under the call for proposals

Over the lifetime of a project, applicants may typically foresee a broad range of activities/deliverables. As a common thread, these activities should involve European young and highly-talented musicians in the field of orchestras.

In this regard, targeted projects should adopt a rigorous, transparent and inclusive approach in the recruitment and training of young highly talented artists who should be nationals of/residents in at least 20 countries participating in the Creative Europe Programme. The broad geographical coverage allowed by the recruitment activities should reflect Europe’s musical and cultural diversity.

Projects should offer to the targeted artists adequate possibilities to perform in particular for new or young audiences by using appropriate means including live performances or digital tools.

Activities shall be carried out in complementarity and as much as possible in synergy with the European Commission’s pilot project on mobility (iPortunus), the ‘European Platforms for the promotion of emerging artists’ action and the European Commission’s initiative ‘Music Moves Europe’

In order to be eligible entities active in cultural and creative sectors must:

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries (i.e.:Creative Europe Participating Countries, EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories) or non-EU countries (listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative EuropeProgramme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature)

Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person.

Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offerguarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.

Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible).

Proposal page limits and layout:

Please refer to Part B of the standard proposal template.The Application Form must be prepared by the consortium and submitted by a representative.

Character and page limits:

• page limit normally 70 pages 
• supporting documents can be provided as an annex and do not count towards the page limit
• minimum font size — Arial 9 points 
• page size: A4 
• margins (top, bottom, left and right): at least 15 mm (not including headers & footers)

Available Budget: EUR 5,400,000.00

Project budget(maximum grant amount): EUR 1,800,000.00

The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rate fixed in the Grant Agreement (40%).