Internationalisation of the Award for Civic Arts Organisations

The annual Award for Civic Arts Organisations was established by the UK Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2020 as a flagship project of this work. In its first three years, the Award focused on the civic arts ecosystem in the UK, putting the spotlight on often underseen stories of community empowerment and co-creation from arts organisations. The Award received applications from 649 organisations across three years. It offers a prize fund of £150,000 – one of the largest amounts for an award in the arts sector. With a new five-year strategy starting this year, the Foundation is working to internationalise its scope and influence, with the Award becoming a flagship project of this strategy. To help lay ground for this development, TFCC was commissioned to conduct a mapping of awards and prizes across Europe that are related to this civic arts agenda.