The Creative Europe call for proposals is a European Union’s framework program with a total budget of € 1.46 billion allocated for the 2014-2020 period. Its purpose is to support the vast European cultural and creative heritage which, in addition to representing a fundamental element of “European civilization”, also has a fundamental role for the economy of the continent.
To reach this important goal it is important to promote and safeguard European cultural diversity and to strengthen the competitiveness of the economic actors operating in this sector.
The program is divided into two sub-programs: the Culture sub-program and the Media sub-program. Let’s see them together.
CRITERIA FOR CULTURE SUBPROGRAM
The Culture sub-program represents 31% of the Creative Europe budget. Among the purposes of this subprogram are:
- Promotion of the internationalization of the cultural sector and the mobility of artists, operators and cultural works;
- Promotion of audience development, i.e. the process that aims to stimulate and create interest from the public towards cultural and creative works, also through practices that make these works more accessible and easily usable for potential consumers;
- Encouraging creativity both from a strictly content point of view (it means everything is related to the artistic product) and from the business model of the actors active in the cultural sector, as well as their management, marketing and communication strategies. This is also connected with the aim of encouraging innovation in the cultural sector so that this sector too can benefit from the current digital revolution;
- Promotion of immigrants’ integration in Europe through an intense inter-cultural dialogue that allows mutual enrichment, as well as a peaceful and respectful coexistence based on mutual understanding.
Actions financed under the Culture sub-program
To achieve the objectives listed above, the Culture sub-program supports the following actions:
- Cooperation programs between European bodies active in the sector with the aim of improving their competitiveness, promoting their internationalization and reaching a wider public and / or involving immigrants or refugees;
- Network of professionals of the sector to carry out a mutual exchange of information and best practices, as well as laying the foundations for future cooperation;
- Literary translation projects, given that the linguistic obstacle to the internationalization of cultural products prevents them from fully exploiting their potential at European and world wide level. For this reason, translation projects are financed, in order to overcome this obstacle;
- Platforms to support the creative sector.
CRITERIA FOR CULTURE SUBPROGRAM
The Media sub-program represents 58% of the budget allocated to the Creative Europe program and supports the audiovisual industry (cinema, TV series and video games) at European level. The purposes of this program are as follows:
- Strengthen the potential of the European audiovisual sector at an international level, also enhancing, when necessary, the competences of professionals of the sector;
- Facilitating international co-productions and exchanges between companies;
- Support to the transnational distribution of the various European audiovisual products, also encouraging innovative distribution methods (internet, on-demand, etc.);
- Encourage marketing and branding operations by European producers.
Actions funded under the Media sub-program
- Development of films, TV series and video games with international distribution potential;
- Distribution of European films in cinemas and through the new digital distribution mechanisms;
- Training programs for professionals of the sector;
- Promotion at festivals and sectoral events;
- Development of operator networks;
- Transnational co-productions.
WHO IS THE CREATIVE EUROPE PROGRAM FOR?
The recipients of this type of financing are all the legal persons operating in the areas of interest of the program (associations, publishing houses, producers, distributors, networks, festivals, etc.). The participations of individuals are generally not eligible.
Within the program, in addition to the Media and Culture sub-programs, there is also a Trans-sectoral Section which has a function of support for the other two sub-programs. Among its main purposes there is being a ” Cultural and Creative Sector Guarantee Facility”, which aims at promoting access to credit by SMEs.
Other functions are the promotion of the collection and exchange of data at European level, the creation and collaboration between their Creative-innovative hubs and the support for the creation of specific studies and degree courses in the creative field, as well as a national network of counters of Creative Europe.
Calls expiring in 2020
At the moment there are several open calls, expiring in May 2020, especially for the Media sub-program, including interesting financing possibilities for the production of TV series and video games, as well as actions to support distribution and the creation of networks within the film industry (the entire list of open calls is available here).
Anyone interested in applying for one of these loans and need support can contact us through the appropriate section of our site.