Stimuleringsfonds

In early 2024, the Fund published the policy plan for 2025-2028: Changes in our work. The plan outlines how accessibility, visibility and the promotion of the quality within the design sector will remain our goal in the coming years, but that adjustment of the grant schemes and the related working practices is needed. Now that most of the 2024 deadlines have passed and 2025 is in sight, we speak to executive director Syb Groeneveld. What are the biggest changes to the available grants for the coming years?

First of all, can you outline why it is so important for the Fund to make several changes to the grant schemes and procedures?
‘Of course. In the 2025-2028 policy plan, we already wrote that in the coming years we are going to focus on easing application procedures and delineating grant schemes more clearly. The main reason for doing so is the increasing number of applications we deal with. In the pre-Covid year 2019, we received over 1,900 applications; in 2023, the number had risen to over 3,000. An increase of more than 50%. At first we suspected that this rise was driven by the pandemic, when many designers and institutions started new projects, but the past two years have shown that the increase has continued unabated. This puts great pressure not only on the Fund, but also on the advisory committees and – last but certainly not least – on the applicants. With the number of staff the Fund has, we are up against the maximum number of applications we can handle. And for advisers, assessing applications is an ever-increasing and by now often excessive time commitment.

Given this trend, we have already reduced the number of rounds in the Design, Architecture and Digital Culture grant schemes – where the increase in applications is highest – from four to three last year. In the third round of these grant schemes, we received no fewer than 360 applications last month. We will be busy until Christmas carefully processing all those applications with the team of colleagues and advisers. We already know that, despite the high quality of applications and positive recommendations, we have to disappoint too many applicants since the budget is not sufficient. This is not only very frustrating but also not desirable, as all those applications represent a tremendous amount of work by the applicants. To illustrate the point, I discovered that 180 of the 360 applications were submitted in the evening hours of the grant scheme’s submission deadline. On the one hand, this says something about the passion with which our field is working on the applications, but it also means that the current set-up creates a great deal of stress for everyone involved. That is why we must now opt for stronger interventions that lead to clearer frameworks and a more realistic perspective for applicants per application round.’

We must now opt for stronger interventions that lead to clearer frameworks and a more realistic perspective for applicants.

What dilemmas does that create?
‘The biggest dilemma is how we can stay accessible while ensuring that the quality of applications and supported projects remains high, so that we realise maximum significance for the sector with the scarce resources at our disposal. Within the cultural infrastructure, the national culture funds, and therefore the Creative Industries Fund NL, have an important responsibility to ensure that the cultural and creative sector is reached in the broadest possible sense. On the one hand, we therefore want to be open to as diverse a group of applicants as possible and, at the same time, we must rein in the potential number of applications. We want to continue to serve the field in the breadth with consideration for the multiperspectivity that is part of it. This means that narrowing grant schemes in terms of content is not an option.’

What interventions have been considered?
‘We considered a number of scenarios, all of which mainly focus on putting a ceiling on the number of applications, specifically closing a grant scheme when a maximum number of applications taken into consideration has been reached, drawing lots to be allowed to apply, and pre-registration combined with a maximum number of applications. With the Experiment Grant Scheme, we gained experience of closing the grant scheme when the maximum number of applications, communicated in advance, had been taken into consideration. For the Design, Architecture and Digital Culture grant schemes, where applications are often made for much larger projects (some of them collaborative), this is not a good practice given the uncertainty it entails. Drawing lots in advance has the advantage of limiting the applicant’s investment, but as an applicant you then have no more control, and how do you monitor the quality of applications as a Fund? By employing pre-registration, you can do that much better because you can build in a formal test.’

With pre-registration, we can monitor quality as a Fund and avoid too many applicants putting wasted effort into a complete application.

So, pre-registration is going to be used for the renewed grant schemes?
'For the Design, Architecture and Digital Culture grant schemes, that is indeed the case, linked to a maximum number of applications. These grant schemes will be open for a short period three times a year and the applicant will apply in two phases. In the first phase, the application is concise and, in addition to basic information, we ask for a brief summary and positioning of the intended project and an overview of intended collaboration partners. If an application comes through the formal test, the applicant is given several weeks to fully develop and submit the application. In addition, we are introducing a budget range; the only applications that can then be submitted to these grant schemes are for projects requesting subsidy of € 10,000 to € 50,000. This does not refer to the total project costs, but the part financed by the Fund. Total project costs may therefore exceed € 50,000. These project applications are also conditional on at least 20% of the total project costs being covered by co-financing.

Read the policy plan 2025-2028 (Dutch)

So what will happen to smaller project applications?
‘The budget range does indeed mean that the Design, Architecture and Digital Culture grant schemes are no longer open to subsidy applications for small projects and starting grants. For this purpose, we are creating a separate grant scheme that will provide room for experimental projects and small projects that are sometimes also the start of a larger project. Finally, it is important to mention that we are changing the accountability system and that we will use a simplified procedure to decide on grants up to € 25,000 within all grant schemes.

We are very well aware that these adjustments will raise many questions. We will therefore organise some online consultation hours in December after the 2025 grant schemes have been published; keep an eye on our website and newsletter for information. I sincerely hope that these changes to our way of working prove to be a positive change for the team at the Fund, the advisers and especially the applicants.’