The €4.4 million Cultural Exchange Fund has been established under the EEA and Norway Grants to strengthen cultural ties between Poland and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The fund is supported with a €4 million grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and €0.4 million from the Polish government.
Grants are awarded to support cultural projects carried out in partnership between Polish players and entities from the donor states. The cooperation activities can be within the fields of music and performing arts, cultural heritage, plastic and visual arts, or literature and archives.
Project proposals can be submitted to the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage until 6 March 2009. While all projects supported under the fund are required to have partners from Iceland, Lichtenstein or Norway, the application needs to be submitted by a Polish entity. Further information about the open call is available on the Cultural Exchange Fund website.
Popular spring 2008 call
The Cultural Exchange Fund has already proven to be a popular addition to the existing cultural ties between the countries. The spring 2008 call spurred much interest, and close to 50 applications involving 57 partners from the donor states were submitted.
More than half of the proposals concerned music and stage arts, whereas only one application was submitted in the field of literature and archives. The applicants included public cultural institutions, art academies, local government authorities and NGOs.
The nine selected projects included competence building in the management of world heritage sites, the influence of the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland on Polish sculpture, promotion of Norwegian children`s literature, a number of theatre projects, opera and piano music, as well as a design project.