Culture of Solidarity Fund

In 2020 we launched the Culture of Solidarity Fund to support cultural initiatives that, in the midst of turmoil and crisis, reinforce European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space. Since then we have launched 11 editions ranging from supporting cultural actors in the Corona crisis, regional and thematic editions, via dedicated Ukraine editions to an edition helping to mobilise voters for the 2024 European Parliament elections. In these eleven rounds, we have supported more than 200 projects with more than 5 million euros with more than 20 co-funding partners on board.

• COS Round 12 (2024): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Democracy Resilience Edition II supports collaborative, creative initiatives that reinforce Europe’s core values and inspire Europeans to reengage with their democracies in a hopeful and forward-looking manner. 
• COS round 11 (2024): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Democracy Resilience Edition I supports European transnational initiatives that mobilise voters for the 2024 European Parliament elections. This edition has been developed in collaboration with Evens Foundation, Allianz Foundation & partners.
• COS round 10 (2023 – 2024): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Just Transition Interregional Edition: This call is open to collaborative, cultural projects addressing the just transition to environmental sustainability and ecological resilience in Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Aosta Valley.
• COS round 9 (2023): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Just Transition: We launched this edition of the Fund to support European transnational collaborative initiatives to address the theme of just transition and environmental sustainability from a specific cultural angle.
• COS round 8 (2023): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Eunic Ukraine edition II: We launched this second special call looking to promote the visibility and embeddedness of Ukrainian culture across Europe, in partnership with EUNIC, with other core financing led by the Government of Flanders and with additional contributions from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Czech Centres, as well as the grantmaking support of the European Cultural Foundation.
• COS round 7 (2022): Culture of Solidarity Fund – Eunic Ukraine edition: We launched this special call looking to promote the visibility and embeddedness of Ukrainian Culture across Europe, in partnership with EUNIC, with funding from several EUNIC members and with core financing led by the Goethe-Institut, and the Institut français and Instituto Cervantes, as well as the grantmaking support of the European Cultural Foundation.
• COS round 6 (2022): Culture of Solidarity – Ukraine special edition: In the first months of its existence, the Ukraine edition of the Culture of Solidarity Fund – a pooled fund powered by a coalition of 11 European funders –  awarded more than 80 projects with the total of just over 1,3 million Euro. The fund supported initiatives in four categories: coordinated emergency actions; independent media countering war infodemic, safe cultural spaces; artistic and cultural expressions countering fragmentation. Meet the partners.
• COS round 5 (2021): Culture of Solidarity – Cultural grant for regional transformation: This call was launched together with Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. The call was open to cultural organisations as well as organisations from other fields of work and public institutions that are based and/or active in Eastern Germany or in European regions similarly affected by deindustrialization, population decline, social dissolution, failing public infrastructure, and ecological crises.
• COS round 4 (2021): Culture of Solidarity – Infodemic: Europe needs a shared public space where a culture of solidarity can be practiced. It is there where the ongoing infodemic can be combatted. Visit SHARE under our programmes to read more about the European Cultural Foundation’s work on the development of a European public space.
• COS round 3 (2020): Culture of Solidarity – Northern Italy: In collaboration with Fondazione CRT and Fondazione CRC we invited organisations from the Piedmont and Aosta Valley regions to submit project ideas and proposals that connect local work with a real pan-European dimension. This round of the Fund sought to support imaginative cultural initiatives that reinforce pan-European solidarity and the idea of Europe as a shared public space from a regional and cross-border perspective.
• COS rounds 1 & 2 (2020): Culture of Solidarity – Covid-19: With our first round we supported big and small initiatives that would grow a European culture of solidarity and support partners and grantees flexibly in the redesign of their activities in response to the Corona Crisis. The first round also supported new imaginative ways of sustaining people-to-people contacts and human interaction across European borders during travel restrictions and social distancing. In the second round, we looked for projects which grew immediate crisis responses into more future-oriented solutions and extended from local levels to building cross-national alliances and pan-European initiatives.

We published an information leaflet with short descriptions of each round, including some data on the applicants and the leverage.

We collected some data on where the first round applicants are based, how they heard about the call, in what sector they work and whether our objectives of the call were reflecting the needs of applicants.

“The fund will support big and small initiatives which grow a European culture of Solidarity, support partners and grantees in a flexible manner in the redesign of their activities in response to the Coronacrisis, support new imaginative ways of sustaining people-to-people contacts and human interaction across European borders in times of travel restrictions and social distancing”, wrote our director in an introductory blog.

Arts and culture will not be the same after COVID-19. The new situation requires new approaches and solutions at local, national and European level. We teamed up with Culture Action Europe to map emergency initiatives and measures carried out across Europe that address the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on culture, arts, creative sectors – with the aim to identify key challenges and possible gaps, or needs, yet unaddressed by the policymakers.