Cooperation Projects Results & UK Successes
Just under €6.5 million has been awarded to cultural and creative organisations across the UK to lead collaborative projects with European partner organisations with funding from Creative Europe, the European Union's programme to support the cultural, creative and audiovisual sectors. The results for Cooperation Projects, the main funding opportunity of Creative Europe’s Culture sub-programme, supporting collaborative creative, cultural and heritage projects, were published in April.
Out of the 80 small and large-scale Cooperation Projects selected applications from across Europe, half of them involve UK-based organisations. A total 45 organisations from all four nations of the UK will benefit from funding, making the UK the best networked and the most involved of all the European countries. These projects are transnational and encourage partner organisations from countries participating in Creative Europe to work together to respond to the programme’s objectives in order to strengthen the sector via sharing skills and business models, and audience and digital development.
The overall application success rate for UK-led applications was 24%, well above the average application success rate of 13% across Europe. Organisations can either apply as lead or non-lead partners of a Cooperation Project. 45 organisations from the UK applied as lead partners for funding from Creative Europe’s Culture sub-programme and 11 were successful. The focus of these cultural and creative projects ranges from contemporary dance, classical music and performing arts, to heritage, design, festivals and visual arts:
UK-led Large Cooperation Projects
London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) is a successful lead partner with a project entitled Urban Heat, which received €980,864 to work with 9 partners. Urban Heat is a project developed by the Festivals in Transition (FIT) network of 13 international festival partners, which enables artists to engage with the invisible communities within cities. Led by LIFT, the four-year project supports artists to reconnect with the world outside the arts by addressing urgent political and social issues, and by working with audiences and communities affected by those issues.
Working with 13 partners, Shetland Amenity Trust will take the lead of Follow the Vikings, a Cooperation Project that will include demonstrations of Viking crafts and arts, Viking games, and shows combining drama, poetry, stories, music, dance and re-enactment and will involve local participation and youth engagement. The project was awarded €1,960,000.
European Union Baroque Orchestra will lead a project involving with 9 other partners, entitled Mobile Baroque Academy: Pathways & Performances, which received the maximum grant of €2,000,000. EUBO Mobile Baroque Academy will provide a significant touring programme with its training orchestra EUBO, orchestral courses, interactive digital master classes, audience development events and a comprehensive digital programme ‘Baroque Bytes’ including live streaming and recordings of performances of baroque repertoire.
UK-led Small Cooperation Projects
ArtReach has been selected to lead FREEDOM (Night of Festivals) a project involving a multi art form Night of Festivals event and partners from five different countries. Working through a process of co-curation the partners will share innovative artistic practice to create a night time carnival performance, a Freedom Wall installation (online and physical) and temporary art installations and that celebrate and explore values of freedom, with presentations taking place in Leicester, London, Germany and Bulgaria.
The LSO (London Symphony Orchestra), in partnership with the Berlin Philharmonic in Germany and the Festival d’Aix in France, has received a grant of €200,000 to support activity surrounding performances of a new commission by Jonathan Dove, a semi-staged opera entitled The Monster in the Maze. Scored for professional musicians with amateur singers (children and adults) drawn from the local communities, the performances will take place in June and July 2015 in Berlin, London and Aix.
English National Opera will lead a project about Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Pirates of Penzance, which will be an operatic directorial debut from acclaimed film and theatre director and Gilbert and Sullivan aficionado Mike Leigh. Following performances at the London Coliseum, this production will travel to their co-producing partners at Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and Théâtre de Caen in October, and the Saarländische Staatstheater, Saarbrücken in November. The project received €200,000.
Other UK organisations who applied successfully as lead partners include Actiondog in London, Southampton Solent University in Southampton, Fabrica in Brighton, Contemporary Dance Trust (The Place) in London and The Nerve Centre on Derry/Londonderry. Many more UK organisations will benefit from Creative Europe funding as non-lead partners on Small and Large Cooperation Projects:
Organisations involved in Large Cooperation Projects
Cinebook
Collage Arts
Royal College of Art
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
University of Winchester
Olivearte Limited
University of the Arts London
Village Underground
Artsadmin
London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) (also involved as a lead of Large Cooperation Project)
Zoom Cymru
University for the Creative Arts
Derby Quad
Next Level Projects
Videohackspace
Plymouth College of Art
Organisations involved in Small Cooperation Projects
Birmingham City University
Siobhan Davies Dance Company
Pacificstream Enterprise (involved in two projects as partners)
University of Wolverhampton (involved in two projects as partners)
Arnolfini Gallery
Seachange Arts
National Youth Orchestras of Scotland
(FACT) Foundation For Art And Creative Technology
Scottish Youth Dance
East Streets Arts
Candoco Dance Company
Upstart Theatre Limited
University of Wolverhampton
Lux
Monteverdi Choir And Orchestras
Peshkar Productions
Full results are published on the EACEA website
Images (clockwise from top left): ArtReach; Sir Simon Rattle and members of LSO Discovery Youth Choir Getty Images - Stuart Wilson; Pirates of Penzance, English National Opera; Dawn Chorus by Marcus Coates, Fabrica, courtesy of Tom Thistlethwaite.
19 May 2015