Catalysing Creative Industries Development in Armenia

Deadline: 26-Sep-21

The European Union (EU) is pleased to announce a call for proposals for Catalysing creative industries development in Armenia.

Objectives & Priority Issues

The global objective of this call for proposals is the development of the Armenian economy by supporting the creation and strengthening of small businesses in the cultural and creative industries sector, contributing to the country’s job creation and socio-economic growth.

The specific objective(s) of this call for proposals are:

To support Armenian creatives to set up, grow and expand viable and sustainable businesses with a national and global outreach by providing a proper mix of financial and business development services to unlock the creatives’ and CCIs potential.
To enable the upscaling of entrepreneurial skills of Armenian creatives to support them to establish sustainable businesses by increasing their knowhow in company creation and management, as well as to improve the conditions for market access for CCIs through increased business capacities of different sub-sectors.
To improve the governance and effectiveness of the Armenian entrepreneurial ecosystem of the cultural and creative industries sector by capacitating ecosystem players and enablers to work with and for creatives and by providing them with sustainable options to build a more effective support system.
To enhance the infrastructure for sustainable creative industries through effective hard (physical) and soft investments, networking, effective business support and effective collaborations

The priorities of this call for proposals are:

Enhance the growth of the skillset of creatives, to encompass, along the artistic competencies that exist, a set of entrepreneurial skills relative to products and services that are in the ideation and development phases.
Enable the build-up and implementation of a set of sustainable financial and business development services focused on the needs of local creative entrepreneurs and that allows them to introduce products and services to national and international markets.
Improve the connection with the needed financial sources within the various stages of development of the creative companies, allowing creatives to access finance.
Enable creative people to network among themselves to draw upon the opportunities through collaborative projects.
Support the involvement and engagement of all relevant creative ecosystem players and enablers to leverage on the creative and business support structures that already exist in the country, which would provide improved services to creative entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs so that competitive advantages can be exploited.

Funding Information

The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 3 000 000. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
Size of grants
- Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
  - minimum amount: EUR 3 000 000
  - maximum amount: EUR 3 000 000

Eligibility Criteria

Lead applicant(s)
- In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  - be a legal person and
  - be non-profit-making and
  - be a non-governmental organisation and
  - be established in Armenia and
  - be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary
Co-applicant(s)
- Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
- Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.
- Co-applicants must sign the mandate form.
Affiliated Entities
- The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
- Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co-applicant(s):
  - Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
  - This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
    - Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
      - Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
        
        Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
        
        Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
        
        Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
    - Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association,) as the proposed affiliated entities.