2014.

2 Collaboration Projects in Arts and Culture

COLABs
- GUIDELINES FOR APPLICANTS
Please read the Guidelines carefully before compiling your application. Proposals that
do not meet all the criteria and conditions will not be considered. In instance of
unclarities please send your questions to bac@artanglebalkans.net before submitting
your application.

Balkans Arts and Culture Fund (BAC)

BAC operates towards fostering inclusive, democratic, and prosperous societies in the
Balkans by strengthening the cultural sector, and encouraging regional collaboration
and integration.

BAC Objectives

BAC aims to advance the independent cultural scene in the region by supporting
authentic cultural production, encouraging participation, and raising capacities of
cultural actors.
Specifically, BAC promotes the following:
Broadened accessibility and participation of/to qualitative, innovative, engaging
culture programmes
Increased collaboration and long term partnerships between independent
cultural organisations in the region
Increased cross-sectoral collaboration
Increased capacities of independent cultural actors

BAC geographic focus

BAC is intended specifically for the independent cultural organisations in the following
focus countries of the Balkans: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro and Serbia.
Please check the conditions regarding partnering with organisations coming from other
than the focus countries of BAC under Organisational Criteria, Partner Organisations
section below.

COLABs what, who, where

Collaborative artistic and cultural projects, COLABs, are contemporary arts and culture
development projects, lasting maximum 24 months. They need to be designed and
developed jointly by minimum two organisations coming from two of the focus
countries. COLABs must be implemented in all those focus countries from which project
Balkans Arts and Culture Fund (BAC) is supported by the Swiss Government, the European Cultural
Foundation (ECF) and artngle - Balkans | Culture | Development.
.

www.balkansartsandculture.fund

partners come from. Activities outside of the countries in focus are possible only in
instance when they can reasonably contribute to the project objectives.

Criteria
The following criteria will guide the selection of the COLABs, in addition to the fulfilment
of all other conditions mentioned in this document:

Relevance - the application should explain the situation, identify the issues, and
justify why there is a need for taking action in the specific field. Application is expected
to clearly communicate how the proposed project will influence the context and/or
make a positive change in relation to the stated issues; it should also explain the
selection of a particular theme and how the effects of concrete activities will outlast the
duration of the project. Furthermore, application needs to clarify links of the planned
work with the main goal and objectives of the BAC.

Partnership - the project idea has to demonstrate collaborative partnership and must
include joint activities/co-production and mutual exchange. Furthermore, project
proposal needs to show the involvement of partners in all aspects of the project,
starting from the preparatory stage. Latter also implies that all partners must
contribute financially to the project in as balanced manner as possible. Entire proposal
should allow for an assessment of quality of the partnership between the organisations
involved in the regional collaboration project. BAC welcomes non-hierarchical project
management structures with shared project management and reporting responsibilities.
Please note that BAC encourages intra- and cross-sectoral partnerships.

Outreach
Each project idea should comprise public activities and it should be clear from the
application how the project and the involved organisations intend to reach as broad a
public/audience as possible.

Fields, Themes and Approaches

Projects must be socially relevant, responsible and change-oriented.
They can be developed in a number of contemporary art fields, for example:
Architecture (including city planning), Culture (cultural policy, cultural management, art
theory, cultural journalism, art criticism), Film (documentary, short, experimental,
animation), Literature, Media (printed, electronic, digital), Performing Arts (music,
theatre, dance), Visual Arts (including photography, graphic design, performance art,
video art, new media, comics etc.), or it could be Interdisciplinary.
The project themes are not pre-set and could be various, equally as the approaches and
methods of work (for instance: Children, Public Space, Youth, Yugoslav History,
Independent Cultural Sector etc.; Capacity Building, Community Development,
Research, Activism, Advocacy etc.1).

What BAC does not fund

Projects in the following fields/areas will not be considered for funding through BAC:
cultural heritage; folklore and folk music; classical music; classical ballet; ethnography
and cultural anthropology; fashion & fashion design; software production and video
games; toys & games; crafts; cultural tourism; feature film; advertising. BAC will also
not fund single/one-off events/productions (single art work; exhibition; performance,
concert, book etc.), as well as the following types of activities and costs: touring of
already existing productions; start-up structural grants for new organisations; awards
and competitions; operating costs regarding regular activities of an organisation;
reconstruction /refurbishing; purchase of equipment; purchase of books for libraries;
1 Please note that these themes are mentioned solely as example, and the list is not exhaustive.
2

art-collections; university and student exchanges; grants for individuals; mobility

grants, scholarships.

Organisational Criteria
Applying Organisation / Partner 1

Geographic presence: applicant organisation must be registered and operating in

one of the following countries: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Montenegro, and Serbia.
Legal form of registration: Applicant is a non-public and non-governmental
organisation and could have one of the following legal forms: non-governmental
(independent) cultural organisation, cultural network, cultural/art foundation, or
cultural/art association2.
Experience: Applicants should have proven record in carrying out activities related
to the project. Individual references of staff will be considered as organizational
references, in instance the applicant organization has been recently
registered/established.

Partner Organisations / Partner 2-6

At least one partner organisation, in addition to the applicant organisation, has to

be registered and operating in one of the focus countries.
Under the condition that minimum two partners come from the above-mentioned
Balkan countries, partnering with organisations from the wider Balkans region
(Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Slovenia, and Turkey) is encouraged.
Partnering with organisations from other European countries is possible.
Legal form of registration: The legal form of the partner organisations should be one
of the following: non-governmental organisation, network, foundation, association;
institution;
Partner organisation can also be a public or governmental organisation/institution.
Experience: Partner organisations should have proven record in carrying out
activities related to the project.

Exchange and Coordination: Project should clearly communicate if and how the
work planned is linked to and coordinated with activities, policies, programmes,
projects, resources etc. of other relevant actors. This also includes a statement if the
project proposed to BAC is a follow up of an already conducted initiative. In this case,
the project idea should particularly outline in which way the project introduces
innovation or provides an added value to the work done. Envisioned knowledge-sharing
and exchange, including participation/broader involvement of wider interested groups,
will be considered an asset in pre-selection.

Financial Conditions

Projects can benefit from the BACs financial support up to 50.000 for two years
duration.
BACs support can amount to maximum 80% of the total project budget. Balanced cofinancing by all implementing organisations (the applicant organisation and its
partners) is obligatory and in total should amount to at least 20% of the overall project
budget. Note that both monetary and in-kind contributions are accepted. In this,
monetary co-financing (coming from own sources or through other public and/or private
bodies) is mandatory and should amount to at least 10% of the total budget for
organisations coming from the focus countries. EU-based organisations are expected to
contribute with a minimum of 20% monetary co-financing to their own share in the
2The organisation must be registered as a legal entity working in culture, or defined as such through its
statute or other founding documents.

project budget. All co-financing contributions have to be shown accordingly in the

project idea application form.
Overhead costs (administrative and running costs) must be in balance with the planned
activities and may not exceed 20% of the overall project budget. No salaries or fees
may be paid to employees of public and state institutions from the BAC grant.

Start date and Duration

The awarded COLABs are expected to start implementation earliest on June 1, 2015.
Duration of projects is up to 24 months.

Exclusion Criteria
An organisation can take part only in one project idea per call, be it as the applicant or
as a partner organisation. If the same organisation is included in two or more project
proposals, all such proposals will be disqualified in their entirety, without prior notice.
Project-related activities planned to be realised before June 1, 2015 are not eligible for
funding.
An organisation currently involved in a project funded by BAC is not eligible for applying
through this call in any capacity be it as the applicant, or the partner organisation. A
project submission involving an organisation currently funded by BAC 3 will be excluded
from the selection process as non-eligible.
Incomplete and/or inadequately filled in applications will not be considered; latter
includes submissions missing any of the obligatory application components or having
the budget tables incomplete or incorrect. Project ideas that do not comply with all of
the above-mentioned financial conditions (grant-maximum; co-financing contribution;
in-kind contribution; overhead-ratio etc.) are not eligible.

Application and Selection Process

1. Project Idea Submission
Project ideas for COLABs are to be submitted by the applicant organisation, according
to the objectives, criteria and conditions described above. Project ideas are to be
written in English language, exclusively in the COLABs application form. Project
application contains 2 documents - a properly filled in application form and a
statement of partnership in the provided format. Both forms are available on the
BAC
website
at
the
Downloads
page
http://www.balkansartsandculture.fund/downloads.html
Applying organisation is responsible for submitting the project idea, for coordination
with partner organisations, and with BAC.
The application form should be submitted as MS Word document, together with the
statement of partnership, not later than on January 25, 2015, 24:00 CET.
Applications should be uploaded through BAC website, at the Submission page:
http://www.balkansartsandculture.fund/submission.html.
All successful uploads will
receive an immediate automatic confirmation of receipt on the website. We advise not
to submit in the final hours before the deadline, as increased traffic may cause slow
upload or failure to upload. In case if you are unable to upload through our website

3 The list of the BAC funded project can be found on the BAC website:
http://www.balkansartsandculture.fund/-collaboration-projects-colabs.html

within the last hour of the deadline, please submit the full application by email to
bac@artanglebalkans.net within the indicated deadline.

2. Pre-selection
BAC team will internally review the proposed project ideas against criteria and
conditions of this call, including qualitative review, and pre-select project ideas for
further assessment. All applicants will be informed about pre-selection results by email,
while the summaries of the pre-selected project-ideas will be published on artngle
website.

3. Selection
Pre-selected applications will be assessed by a group of external advisers. In the same
time additional assessment will be conducted by the BAC team. Selection is made on
the basis of combined external and internal assessments.
The selection of project ideas to be further developed into full project proposals will be
made until mid-March, 2015. All pre-selected applicants will be informed about the
selection results by email.

4. Development of full proposals

Selected projects will receive support from artngle in the development of the full
proposals. Upon approval of the full proposal, the contract is signed and the project can
start.