Creative Europe 2021-2027: 5 things we learned in the first round of applications
There’s a saying about buses: You can wait ages for one, then three turn up at once. Spring 2021 was filled with seemingly interminable delays, but finally the new Creative Europe 2021-2027 programme kicked into gear in June 2021 and announced the first batch of opportunities for cultural and creative projects. And unlike the modestly numbered buses in the old saying, the Commission launched a whopping 20 calls for proposals, all with deadlines clustered towards the start of autumn.
It was time for the TrueMotion team to roll up its sleeves, prep multiple pots of coffee, and get down to some serious EU application writing. Here are the top 5 lessons we came away with.
1
Arts and culture are (still) seen as a means to an end
When details of the new Creative Europe were announced back in December 2020, it soon became clear that despite the Commission’s securing a super-sized budget (EUR 2.4 billion, a 63% increase over the last round), they had no intention of making any significant structural changes to the programme. And so, you can still find opportunities for the AV sector under the MEDIA strand. All other cultural sectors can look under Culture, and as for interdisciplinary project opportunities, you can find these under the Cross-sectoral strand. (We noticed they’ve squeezed journalism into that last strand, by the way. While its link to culture may be tenuous, it arguably fits into the EU’s new “horizontal” policy framework.)
Sticking to this status quo also means that the EU continues to lean towards what is often called an “instrumentalist” approach to cultural policy. Such an approach prioritises arts and culture as tools through which to achieve other goals, over their intrinsic value.
This rationale is evident in the Regulation that underpins the new Creative Europe programme. Policymakers make a point of highlighting that “artistic creation should be at the heart of the Programme”. While this might make it seem like they’re acknowledging creativity for its own sake, dig a little deeper and what they actually mean is almost the exact opposite.
Here, the EU isn’t prioritising the value of cultural and creative sector (CCS) output as a public good, but rather emphasising the economic value of the sector’s job-creating potential, as well as the intellectual property rights arising from cultural and artistic works (think copyright, licensing, etc.)—rights that, naturally, can be exploited to fuel and sustain a European cultural marketplace. As a result, there’s less room for artists to justify funding applications based on their own priorities.
In fact, the programme now requires applicants to pay more attention to a whole range of policy priorities and political aims and fold these into their proposals. These include social inclusion and equality, economic competitiveness against the US and China, climate action, democratic resilience, as well as increased digitization.
While this market-driven and instrumentalist approach may dismay creatives and artists who prefer not to view their work as a means to an end, as project applicants it’s an ongoing reality that they must navigate in order to secure funding and manage successful projects.
“The EU continues to lean towards what is often called an ‘instrumentalist’ approach to cultural policy.”
2
It’s all about deliverables
We’ve established that Creative Europe assesses the value of artistic and cultural projects in terms of what other (concrete) results they can achieve. So it’s no surprise that the programme is also prioritising project deliverables.
At first glance, this makes sense. Publicly funded projects have an obligation to show their value if EU member states are expected to keep financing them. Deliverables, or “project outputs which show project progress”, are the clearest and shortest route to achieving that objective. In recent years, however—following the lead of the EU’s largest funding programme i.e., Horizon Europe—the Commission’s fixation on concrete outputs as the only way to prove project success has been steadily intensifying.
In line with this development, Creative Europe-funded project deliverables must now link to (and therefore be evaluated on) the specific EU priorities listed in the calls for proposals. This makes it clearer than ever that cultural and creative projects are seen to a large extent as conduits through which to implement EU policy.
This kind of single-track mindset risks undermining the diverse ways in which European projects can benefit society. It’s also particularly challenging for the CCS, which is unlikely to be able to report on the value it contributes to society in the same way that, say, a tech startup can point to an innovation or its bottom line.
In practical terms, cultural organisations may find themselves struggling to quantify project results in a standardised deliverable format. For example, a report on or recording of a live music event is not the same as the experience of the event itself. As a result, the deliverable has to be measured through ill-fitting metrics such as audience size, which do not necessarily capture the quality of what was produced.
The one upside of deliverable-based reporting is that it provides a measure of flexibility to project partners, particularly as to when they file their reports. The key to setting up a smoother reporting experience is to make sure you design the proposal well to start with, including a clear vision of what you expect to achieve in terms of your deliverables.
3
The EU is now positioning itself as an investor
As odd as “investing” might sound in the public funding context, this is a direction that the EU is firmly moving in. Under the new Creative Europe, certain calls have already adopted lump sum financing, which is an innovation worth elaborating on since it’s a term project applicants are increasingly likely to come across.
Simply put, while lump sum financing still requires detailed estimated budgets for each part of a project at the application stage—much like budget-based financing (the norm to date)—lump sum financing differs in that it requires no reports on exactly how funds are spent throughout the project. Instead, deliverables are assessed to determine whether the project has met its goals, and pledged funds are awarded accordingly.
Doing away with onerous financial reporting is likely to come as welcome news to CCS organisations already overwhelmed by paperwork, but there are two things to keep in mind here.
For one, this amps up the pressure for pre-set deliverables to meet expectations, as a failure to do so results in support being cut based on the budget allocated to a deliverable. For another, the ever-present possibility of being audited means that applicants need to keep thorough records of their financial activity for as many as 5 years following the conclusion of a project.
Overall, it is an interesting move by the Commission, clearly in the spirit of streamlining. It’s also one that follows a broader development in which the Commission is positioning itself as a hands-off investor, rather than a micromanaging funder of projects. How well this will work in reality will become evident, but likely not before we’re well into this new cycle.
4
Brexit means Brexit, with few exceptions
Britain leaving the EU has been, as expected, quite damaging to growth and cooperation on both sides of the Channel. Despite regular reporting in the news on the disadvantages British artists now face by being cut off from the European CCS and more generally through the loss of freedom of movement in Europe, there’s not much their European counterparts can do to mitigate the new political reality.
As a direct result of Brexit, British organisations can no longer be full partners in EU projects and are therefore unable to access funding under programmes such as Creative Europe. Even worse, British cultural outputs, particularly in the AV sector (think films, cinema, VOD), may soon lose their “European” label altogether. One effect of this change would be the exclusion of British works from mandatory quotas of European cultural production, putting them instead in direct competition for exposure with the minority segments of non-European contributors on European platforms.
Overall, the picture is bleak for British creatives and artists looking for EU funding opportunities. For now, they can only take advantage of a couple of loopholes as non-EU member states. First, they are allowed to take on fee-paying roles for providing “external expertise”. They can also have their costs covered by Creative Europe for activities that have a specific dimension around internationalisation (in EU terms, this means activities taking place outside of the EU), such as festivals.
“The Commission is positioning itself as a hands-off investor, rather than a micromanaging funder of projects.”
5
The admin is easy... Once you get the hang of it
While applying for and running a Creative Europe project can be a lot to deal with, especially for first-time applicants, the good news is that the Commission—keen to avoid barriers to participation—is taking steps to make the process simpler wherever possible.
To that end, the application process has become less burdensome in the new cycle. For example, the application portal now requires applicants to upload fewer supporting documents. The online reporting system is also much simpler. And while the programme has now done away with its central document (the general “Guide for Applicants”), it’s now just a matter of locating the equivalent documents for each particular call.
Reporting on deliverables may be the main exception to this effort towards simplification. In fact, with so much riding on deliverables (i.e., they must meet proposal expectations and there’s a very real prospect of financial penalties in case of failure to do so), it’s arguable that this aspect of project management has become tougher than ever for CCS project partners.
This shouldn’t deter prospective applicants too much, however. As we mentioned above, well-designed, clear and realistic deliverables can actually help project partners in navigating through their project, making the new deliverable-based reporting system far less daunting than it seems at first glance.
The takeaway on Creative Europe 2021-2027
An unchanged structure and streamlined admin may tempt some applicants to view Creative Europe’s latest cycle as “business as usual”. However, even our relatively brief (though intense!) experience of exploring and responding to most of the calls announced over the summer revealed that the Commission’s priorities regarding cultural and creative policy are evolving in a specific direction that applicants should be well aware of when designing their Creative Europe proposals.
While Creative Europe acknowledges that freedom of artistic expression is key to creating, innovating and producing works of art and culture, the focus is more than ever on concrete deliverables that can be exploited and distributed to a wide audience. The key objectives are to support Europe’s post-pandemic economy, encourage social inclusion and cultural participation and ideally work towards broader sustainability aims such as the European Green Deal.
So it’s clear that the EU has its own agenda, one that doesn’t always mesh well with applicants’ aims and objectives. Although important and necessary to tackle, issues such as pandemic recovery, gender equality, sustainability, and the digital shift may not be the primary concerns for those actually running the projects.
Imposing the EU’s own priorities on the CCS may, as a result, inadvertently restrict creative freedom and burden applicants with the task of incorporating extra dimensions into their projects just so they can access the support they need to create the cultural works they originally envisaged.
What this means for applicants is that, in order to implement their projects with Creative Europe’s support, they must carefully balance their creative vision with the programme’s overarching priorities. Despite the challenge inherent in that task, Creative Europe remains an incredible source of support for CCS organisations. Especially considering the increase in budget (which of course translates to an increase in opportunities), it’s well worth keeping an eye out for the next round of calls for proposals in the final quarter of 2021.
By Arne van Vliet, 2021
Arne van Vliet is the creative director of TrueMotion. He’s passionate about the creative arts and specialises in creative strategies for innovative projects that are reshaping the arts landscape in Europe. Need some advice or direction on your next creative project? Get in touch with us!
