Call: European Cooperation Projects Small Scale

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 involving a large diversity of players active in different cultural and creative sectors, to carry out a broad spectrum of activities and initiatives. The action is anchored in the policy framework of the Culture strand of the Creative Europe programme and its cross-cutting issues (inclusiveness, reduction of environmental impact and gender equality). European cooperation projects are also meant to contribute to the implementation of emerging EU policy initiatives such as the New European Bauhaus.

European cooperation projects are open to all the cultural and creative sectors. However, considering that this action aims at pursuing the objectives of the CULTURE strand of the programme, projects involving exclusively organisations from the audio-visual sector and projects of an exclusive audiovisual content are not targeted for funding under it.

Support will be given to cooperation projects contributing to the following objectives:

• Objective 1 - Transnational creation and circulation: to strengthen the transnational creation and circulation of European works and artists;
• Objective 2 – Innovation: to enhance the capacity of European cultural and creative sectors to nurture talents, to innovate, to prosper and to generate jobs and growth.

Concretely the targeted projects are the following:

• Transnational creation and circulation: where trans-national co-operation is required for artistic and financing reasons. This is in line with the legal base and its priorities in order to increase the European dimension of the artistic and creative process. Co-production is also a tool to stimulate creativity, share resources and facilitate the trans-national distribution of content and the circulation of artists. Projects will have to take into account the new context such as health or environmental concerns and integrate innovative (digital) ways of producing and disseminating content.
• Innovation: is necessary for the evolution of the sector and its competiveness. Innovation has to be understood in a broad way. Innovations are not necessarily of a technological nature and can include the development and experimentation of new practices or new models but also the transfer and dissemination of good practices from more advanced European regions or sectors to other regions in Europe or disciplines.

Applicants shall identify and select which of the two above-mentioned objectives (Objective 1 or Objective 2) the proposed project aims to address (this selection shall be made even if some projects could be relevant for both objectives).

Expected results

This action is expected to foster cooperation between organisations active in the culture field, to increase the European dimension of creation and circulation of European artistic content as well as to encourage the development, experimentation, dissemination or application of new and innovative practices.

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

Projects shall address at least one (and no more than two) of the following priorities:

• Audience: to increase cultural access to and participation in culture as well as audience engagement and development both physically and digitally;
• Social inclusion: to promote societal resilience and to enhance social inclusion in/through culture in particular of/for people with disabilities, people belonging to minorities and people belonging to socially marginalised groups, as well as intercultural dialogue;
• Sustainability: to contribute to the European Green Deal and including the New European Bauhaus, by encouraging the European cultural and creative sectors to co-create, adopt and disseminate more environment-friendly practices, as well as to raise awareness on sustainable development through their cultural activities;
• New technology: to help the European cultural and creative sectors fully take advantage of new technologies to enhance their competitiveness, as well as to accelerate their digital transition as a response to the COVID-19 crisis;
• International dimension: to build the capacity within the European cultural and creative sectors, including grass-roots organisations and micro-organisations, to be active at the international level – in Europe and beyond;

Projects from the sectors book and publishing, music, architecture and cultural heritage can either address one of the priorities spelled out above (priorities 1 to 5) or address the following sector specific priorities (10% of the budget of the call will be allocated to projects implementing sector-specific priority). Projects from other sectors can only address the priorities indicated above (priorities 1 to 5).

Sector specific priorities:

For 2021, the following targeted annual priorities have been defined for the sectors music, publishing, cultural heritage and architecture, as identified by political dialogues and stakeholders’ consultations, to support capacity building activities, such as training, networking or market access activities, and support to become more resilience.

Projects shall meet the following specific sectorial priorities:

• For the book (publishing) sector: Reinforce the capacity of book sector professionals in the sales of translation or adaptation rights with a view to increase the circulation of European literary works, and in particular works written in lesser-used languages, in Europe and beyond.
• For the music sector: Building on the 2018-2020 Music Moves Europe preparatory action on music, and considering the specific circumstances of the pandemic and its impact, reinforce the capacity of music professionals in:
  • Music creation, promotion, distribution and monetisation, helping the sector to address in particular new digital, legal and technical trends stemming from innovations in the market and new business models; or
  • Cross-border circulation of European music and music export beyond EU borders
• For the architecture sector: Reinforce the capacity of European architects in:
  • Communication, co-creation and mediation with citizens and relevant stakeholders in design, planning and building processes;
  • The integration of European Green Deal and in particular New European Bauhaus principles in their practices; or
  • The internationalization of careers in Europe and beyond.
• For the cultural heritage sector: Reinforce the capacity of cultural heritage professionals in:
  • Engagement and mediation with citizens in the interpretation, communication and presentation of cultural heritage to develop relationships with audiences and stakeholders, taking into account evolving technological and digital methods of content creation and presentation of archived output, and drawing lessons learnt during the lockdown;
  • Digitisation of cultural heritage material, sites and historical buildings including the use of 3D and AI technologies;
  • Risk management for cultural heritage – with a focus on prevention and risk preparedness in relation to natural and non-natural hazards including climate change adaptation and mitigation in accordance with the principles of the European Green Deal.

Proposals shall include, in the application form, a substantiated strategy and description of how they plan to implement the chosen priority/ies. Projects can select a maximum of two of these priorities. These should be the most relevant priorities addressed in the project.

Cross-cutting issues

Proposals shall take into consideration the cross-cutting issues of inclusion, diversity, gender equality, and environment and fight against climate change in the design and the implementation of their project.

A strategy on how cross-cutting issues are addressed in the project should be outlined in the application form.

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 21,330,017.00

Project budget (maximum grant amount): EUR 200,000.00

The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rate fixed in the Grant Agreement (80%).