Update: The final start date has been adjusted. The regulation states that the start date must be no later than September 1, 2024. This has been changed to September 30, 2024.

Update: The scheme for cultural education in vmbo, vso and pro education has been extended! You can still apply for subsidies until July 1, 2024. Do you have any questions? Please contact our advisors or via cultuureducatie@cultuurparticipatie.nl. We're happy to assist you further!

As a cultural institution in collaboration with the education sector, would you like to take a first or next step in the development and implementation of cultural education at school? And thus to promote the creative ability of the students? You work together with a school and know what your wishes and strengths are. Together, you work on cultural education based on the school's and the students' needs.

Who can apply?

A non-profit cultural institution in the Kingdom of the Netherlands that enters into a collaboration with a school or branch of a school for vmbo, vso or pro. The school itself cannot apply, but it can take the initiative of finding a cultural institution to cooperate with.

What can you apply for?

You apply for a collaboration with the education sector in which you develop a tailor-made project to promote the creative ability of students. Both parties are ready for a step towards the enrichment of cultural education at school, outside the regular programme.

Making a connection between curricular and extracurricular cultural education may be part of your project.

What does the Fund look out for?

To help you with your application and to facilitate the process, we have created a format for your project plan. You can use this as a framework to describe your plan. We have also made a format for the budget and the collaboration agreement, which we advise you to use. This page is a summary of the complete legal regulation. Would you like to apply? Then make sure you have also read the full version of the scheme. A text version is available here that only includes the relevant parts. You will find all the documents mentioned here in the grey box under 'Documents'. These documents are only available in Dutch.

The criteria of the scheme are briefly described below:

• Content | Do you adequately describe the approach, methodology or strategy you will use to develop activities together that promote students' creative ability?
• Collaboration | Is the collaboration equal and based on mutual effort and commitment? Is there a common goal and a clear division of tasks and roles in terms of involvement and finances? Does this also apply to the exchange of expertise in the form of competency building?
• Embedding | Do you give a realistic picture of how you both can continue to use the desired results and knowledge after the project has ended?
• Organisation | Does your application contain a realistic plan of activities that will contribute to achieving the goal? Is your budget reasonable and consistent with the activities?

At the end of the project you will know each other's possibilities and needs as well as those of the students. You will also have increased the staff's expertise in the field of cultural education and promoted the students' creative abilities.

Practical conditions (selection)

• Applications are processed in order of receipt until the budget limit has been reached. So do not wait too long to apply.
• Your project may only start once the Fund announces that you have been awarded a grant. This takes 13 weeks at most.
• At the latest, you start in the school year following the year in which your application was honoured.
• Your project will last up to three years, including at least two years of activities with students
• A maximum of three applications will be granted per applicant.
• You must apply the three culture codes as described in Article 1.4 of the grant regulation. How strictly this is taken into account depends on requested amount.
• The grant doesn't exceed 65% of the total project costs in the European part of the Netherlands, and 80% in other parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 
• The educational institution also contributes towards the financial resources needed for the project. This contribution must not consist solely of capitalised hours.

The total budget for this phase is €5.5 million. This has been split into two periods of €2,750,000 (up to 31 December 2022 and from 1 January 2023).

Other phases

Does your project not fit into this phase? The other two phases focus on the initial introduction and ensuring the sustainability of cultural education projects.