Deadline: 13-Aug-2025
The National Culture Fund of Bulgaria, serving as the Monitoring and Reporting Structure under the country’s Recovery and Resilience Plan, has opened the call for project proposals under procedure BG-RRP-11.022. This grant scheme, titled “New Generation of Local Cultural Policies for Small Municipalities,” invites applications aimed at enhancing local cultural development.
The procedure supports two specific objectives. The first focuses on backing cultural operators through whom municipalities implement their cultural policies. This objective is mandatory and must constitute at least 80% of the project budget. The second objective involves supporting municipal administrations in developing new cultural strategies and partnerships in the cultural sector.
The total grant funding available for this procedure is BGN 9,900,000, exclusive of the mandatory co-financing required from applicants. The grant amount ranges from BGN 40,000 to BGN 200,000 per applicant, with recipients obligated to co-finance 25% of the total grant they receive.
The project implementation period must not exceed 12 months, with all activities to be completed no later than March 31, 2026.
Under Specific Objective 1, eligible activities include creating or enhancing cultural products such as events or festivals. This can involve hiring specialists, developing content in various art forms, covering travel costs for artists and crew, transporting materials and artworks, and organizing public presentations of creative works to Bulgarian audiences.
Under Specific Objective 2, municipalities can undertake activities to develop or implement new tools for cultural policy-making, conduct studies and analyses, and facilitate knowledge transfer from other Bulgarian or EU municipalities.
Eligible applicants are municipalities that are not regional centers. These municipalities must offer competitive cultural funding mechanisms, have approved or draft Culture Fund rules, and comply with Article 36 of the Cultural Heritage and Development Act. Major cities and regional centers such as Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, and others are excluded from eligibility.
For more information, visit National Culture Fund.
