New ideas for cultural collaboration in non-EU countries: European Spaces of Culture launches call for proposals

Co-funded by European Commission, the European Spaces of Culture action is looking for new innovative ideas for collaboration in cultural relations in non-EU countries, involving EU National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) members, the EU and local partners outside the EU.

The overall objective of European Spaces of Culture is to redefine European cultural relations through collaboration between EU Member States, EU Delegations and local stakeholders in non-EU countries.

The purpose of the Call is to redefine the idea of what European cultural relations can be, by finding and testing new innovative ideas for models of European Spaces of Culture or to retest and scale up already identified models. The call is open for activities based on the principles of cultural relations as building fair partnerships by practising mutual listening and learning and engaging in dialogue, co-creation, and joint capacity building.

The Call requires proposals to be co-created by local stakeholders (e.g. civil society organisations, local cultural actors), EUNIC members and EU Delegations in the spirit of equal partnership. Applicants are encouraged to investigate transnational and transregional projects. The Call has an envelope of €500,000, with an additional Mobility grant scheme of €14,000. Depending on the funding requested, around 10 projects are planned to be funded.

Eligible proposals include any suitable project format (permanent structures, pop-up formats, festival pavilions, purely digital tools, networking, etc.), focusing on arts, creative industries, development cooperation, digitalisation, education, gender, heritage, human rights, social inclusion, sports, sustainability, tourism, youth, and others. Research, feasibility studies and cluster capacity-building are possible, as are preparatory activities for the project. With a view to the current Covid-19 pandemic, the Call is open to innovative digital or hybrid formats of cultural relations projects.

The project team must include the EU Delegation(s) in the concerned country(ies) and a minimum of three key local cultural partners. Partners can be civil society organisations as well as public bodies.

The Pilot projects should take place between 1 January and 31 October 2022 in one or more non-EU countries – applicants are encouraged to investigate transnational and transregional projects. The call for proposals is open until 13 June 2021.

Find out more

Press release

Eligibility criteria and application form