Open Call for First Aid to Documentary Heritage under Threat

Deadline: 30-Nov-21

The Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, through its Cultural Emergency Response (CER) programme and the Whiting Foundation announce a fourth cycle of the Open Call for First Aid to Documentary Heritage under Threat.

Through the three previous rounds of this call, the Prince Claus Fund and Whiting Foundation supported stewards across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean to prevent and minimize a loss of documentary heritage by funding 37 projects.

This fourth round will continue to expand the scope of this initiative and facilitate the vital work of local actors in safeguarding documentary heritage and making the information they carry accessible to future generations. In doing so, they hope to contribute to the survival of historical narratives of diversity and the strengthening of regional capacities to respond to future needs.

Funding Information

Grants will average about €15.000.
Grant funds can only cover project-related expenses, not running (operating) costs for organisations.
No support will be provided retroactively (i.e., to projects already implemented).

Eligibility Criteria

The project must aim to safeguard documentary heritage (i.e., cultural heritage designed to carry information in writing, such as manuscripts, books, archives, tablets, and carvings or inscriptions).
The project must respond to an emergency situation, and must be to preserve or disseminate documentary heritage threatened or recently affected by an acute, current, or impending conflict, natural disaster, or other condition that pose an acute risk. Cases of longterm neglect are not eligible.
The country where the intervention is to take place must be in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and the applying organisation or individual must live and work in one of these regions.
The heritage involved must be significant for a specific community, whether local, regional, national, or global.
Local communities, a local organisation, and/or local authorities must be involved in the emergency response, preferably leading it, and the legal owner must support the proposed measures.
The intervention must be able to be carried out within a time frame of twelve months, corresponding to the emergency character of the collaboration.
No direct or indirect support will be provided to individuals or organisations currently subject to US sanctions.
Through its activities, the project must contribute to increasing the accessibility of the affected documentary heritage and the dissemination of the stories it holds.
The project could, among other things, fulfil one or several of the following aims:
- Emergency conservation, preservation, and restoration for the urgent safeguarding and stabilization of damaged and/or threatened documentary heritage.
- Emergency digitization, documentation, or scanning of damaged and/or threatened documentary heritage.
- Evacuation and/or relocation of threatened collections.
- (Re-) organization, cataloguing, inventorying, and documentation to enhance the accessibility of collections for researchers and other users.
- The restoration and/or improvement of storage facilities, and the enhancement of safety and security conditions for the sustainable preservation of collections.
- Capacity building and training activities to enhance the abilities of the caretakers of the collection and other stakeholders, for example in restoration and conservation skills, inventory methodologies, and digitization.
- Dissemination and awareness-raising activities to increase access to the documentary heritage and to bring it to the attention of the larger public, for example through educational programmes, exhibitions, or workshops for the surrounding communities.