Grant round 2025-2028 under same conditions

After consultation with the Council for Culture, representatives of the field and other authorities, among others, Uslu decided to make an application round for both the BIS and the State Culture Funds, with the conditions and criteria remaining largely the same.

Extending the existing culture plan period encountered legal limits. With the Council for Culture, she wants to look at simplifying the procedure, which should ensure less administrative burden for the institutions, while also leaving room for newcomers. An expansion of the available budget of 25 million euros per year will also apply in the period 2025-2028 so that more applications can be honored.

State Secretary Uslu wants to critically review the system, improve it and prepare it for the future. The Council for Culture, which has already offered several partial recommendations on the system, plays a major role in this. In addition, the sector itself is also closely involved in the plans, as are other governments.

Interest group for the cultural and creative sector Kunsten '92 expressed concern about the state secretary's intention to wait with reforms yet: "Cultural institutions, artists and workers in the cultural and creative sector face extraordinary challenges. The aftermath of the corona crisis, rising energy prices, high inflation and demand drop due to purchasing power decline are currently demanding the utmost of their creativity, capacity and financial resilience. The announcement of a new round of applications by

State and local governments means that anyone who wants to qualify for 4-year state funding has to start developing new plans and, unfortunately, compete with peers again. It sets in motion a bureaucratic, lengthy and costly process of plan writing and reviews."

• Kunsten '92 also provides a number of recommendations, including:
• Allow for innovation, flexibility and social impact. Avoid detailed performance requirements. It makes little sense or reality to plan activities far ahead or predict audience numbers. Accept a degree of uncertainty.
• Start from the applicant's mission and profile and use it as a frame of reference for evaluating criteria. Empathize, as evaluator, with the applicant's (artistic) vision.
• Offer leniency when it comes to assessing past performance. - Guarantee the accessibility of offerings.
• Pay attention to fair practice, especially in the flexible shell of organizations. Where the application round is primarily about organizations, we also need to provide a fair basis for artists.

Kunsten '92 also expresses its concerns about the acute energy crisis and inflation: "The consequences of the energy crisis will irrevocably affect the cultural climate and the cultural infrastructure. We call on you to remain alert and give the cultural and creative sector as much space as possible, so that it can fulfill its public task as well as possible and continue to make its important social contribution."

You can download the entire letter from Kunsten'92 at BKinformatie.nl