Brussels,

Creative Europe Fund
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Creative Europe is the European Commission's programme for providing support to the cultural and audiovisual sectors.

2021-2027 Budget:  €2.53 billion
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Programme


​The Programme builds on and continues the structure of the previous programme with 3 strands:

  • CULTURE - This sub-programme covers the cultural and creative sectors, with the exception of the audiovisual sector.  it promotes culture initiatives, cross-border cooperation, platforms, networking and literaly translation.

  • MEDIA - This sub-programme audiovisual finances initiatives, such as those promoting the development, distribution, or access to audiovisual works.
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  • CROSS-SECTORAL STRAND - It covers activities across all cultural and creative sectors, including a Guarantee Facility and transnational policy cooperation.
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​Predecessor Programme
Creative Europe
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CULTURE
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The Culture sub-programme of the Creative Europe programme supports a wide range of cultural and creative sectors:
  1. architecture
  2. cultural heritage
  3. design
  4. literature and publishing
  5. music
  6. performing arts
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The Culture sub-programm also encourages cooperation and exchanges among cultural organisations and artists within Europe and beyond.:
  • fostering artistic creation and innovation
  • supporting the promotion and the distribution of European content across Europe and beyond
  • helping artists find creation and performance opportunities across borders,
  • stimulating the digital and environmental transition of the European Culture and Creative Sectors

MEDIA
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The MEDIA strand of the Creative Europe programme supports the European film and audiovisual industries to develop, distribute and promote European works, taking into account today’s digital environment.

In addition:
  • it encourages cooperation across the value chain of the audiovisual industry and at EU level in order to scale up enterprises and European content globally
  • it nurtures talents – wherever they come from
  • it engages with audiences of all ages, specially the younger generations

​To ensure more flexibility in the actions supported and to encourage cooperation among the different parts of the audiovisual value-chain, the priorities of the 2021-2027 Creative Europe programme are structured around 4 clusters:

  1. Content - Creation and Production
  2. Business - Business innovation, scalability and talents
  3. Audience - Stimulation of an audience with changed behaviors and habits
  4. Policy support and awareness raising - Consolidate the European audiovisual single market

CROSS-SECTORAL
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​The Cross-sectorial strand aims at reinforcing collaboration between different cultural and creative sectors, in order to help them address the common challenges they face and find innovative new solutions.

This is achieved for instance through policy cooperation, the services provided by the Creative Europe desks, and the Creative Innovation Lab.

New support to the news media sector

For the first time, Creative Europe offers funding to the news media sector in order to promote media literacy, pluralism and media freedom, as well as activities to help the sector adjust to the structural and technological changes it faces.
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​In particular, in 2021, Creative Europe launched a call for proposals on journalism partnerships. The action aims to:
  • promote sector-wide, cross-border collaboration among news media professionals in Europe
  • stimulate sharing of best practices for collaborative business transformation
  • encourage journalistic collaboration by developing standards, new business models, training programmes, funding schemes and other activities that aim to uphold quality journalism.
The support targets the wider European news media sector, including small media.

Supporting innovative digital solutions for the cultural and creative sectors

Through the Creative Innovation Lab action, Creative Europe wants to encourage innovative approaches to content creation, access, distribution, and promotion across the cultural and creative sectors, as well as with other sectors. Such approaches shall take the digital transition into account and cover both market and non-market dimensions.

The Creative Innovation Lab aims to:
  • incentivise players from different cultural and creative sectors to design and test innovative digital solutions with long-term positive impact
  • ease creation of innovative, close-to-market tools, models and methods for the audiovisual sector and at least another creative or cultural sector.

Creative Europe Desks

Creative Europe Desks are designed to:
  • provide information about and promote the Creative Europe programme in their country
  • assist the cultural and creative sectors in relation to the programme and provide basic information on other support opportunities
  • stimulate cross-border cooperation within the cultural and creative sectors
  • provide assistance regarding the cultural and creative sectors in participating countries
  • support the Commission in ensuring proper communication and dissemination of the results and impacts of the programme
  • ensure the communication and dissemination of information concerning funding awarded to and results in a participating country.