Youth Arts Fund: Bursary Programme

The Youth Arts Fund: Bursary Programme is a new fund to provide opportunities for arts and creative organisations to support early-career artists and creative practitioners aged 18-24 in the arts, screen and creative industries. Organisations can apply for funding to offer bursaries to these artists, to help them develop and produce work.

Please note, the Youth Arts Fund: Bursary Programme is now closed for applications.

Purpose of the fund

The purpose of the Youth Arts Fund: Bursary Programme is to provide funding to organisations to host up to 5 bursaries for early-career artists and creative practitioners aged between 18 and 24, who have a lack of accessible support to develop their creative careers, to create new or develop existing work.

The host organisations will support the artists and creative practitioners to build contacts, create and present ambitious work, build experience, identify ongoing opportunities and plan for next steps beyond the bursary. In developing this fund, we’ve looked at some of the learning from previous youth employment initiatives that Creative Scotland has delivered, as well as the wider impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people’s lives.

We’ve produced a supporting document that brings together some of this learning and shares some of what we have heard from young people about the challenges they face and the support they would like as they take the next steps in their careers. You can find this in the Downloads section of this page.

What will the fund support?

The fund will support between 10 and 25 arts/creative organisations based in Scotland:

With a grant of between £5,000 and £30,000
To host up to 5 bursaries lasting up to 12 months
To support the artists and creative practitioners they host in the development and sharing/presentation of work and their next steps beyond the project
To reflect on and diversify their own programmes
To learn from working with young early-career artists and creative practitioners

The selected host organisations will be expected to run an open call for artists and creative practitioners between December 2021 and February 2022.

These should be for individuals who:

Are aged between 18 and 24 (or, aged over 24 if they are disabled and/or care experienced)
Are based in Scotland
Are working in art forms and practices which could include but not limited to: multi-art form, craft, creative learning, dance, design (including fashion and architecture), literature, music, theatre, visual arts, traditional arts, Gaelic language and culture, Scots, film, digital (including computer games design), socially or community engaged practice.

Who can apply?

The fund was open to organisations based in Scotland whose work involves the arts, screen and creative industries. This can include Creative Scotland Regularly Funded Organisations as well as third sector organisations who can demonstrate their capacity to deliver a supported bursary programme for early-career artists and creative practitioners aged between 18 and 24.

Deadline

Please note, the deadline for applications was extended to 12 noon, 30 August 2021.

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