Application Guideline for Mobility Grants - August

This page was last updated on August 11 2023.

Mobility Grants

The purpose of the mobility grant is to enable artists and critics to spend time abroad to discover new tools and networks that support their artistic practice. The applicant may also be a working group or registered organisation, such as an association. All associations and organisations except those receiving regular public funding may apply.

Applicants must spend a minimum of one week at the destination to qualify. Expenses from several trips can be collected under a single application, provided that they belong to the same project, occur within one year, and include one or more trips lasting at least one week. A mobility grant may be used only for those mobilities occurring from November onwards.

Acceptable uses of the grant include residency costs, festival participation, exhibition projects or international collaborations.

Expenses covered by the grant are:
•    travel
•    accommodation
•    residency fees
•    shipping fees, insurance fees
•    other expenses directly related to travel arrangements.

Grants may be sought for expenses ranging from EUR 2,000 to EUR 10,000.

The Cultural Foundation is favourably disposed towards higher travel costs due to the journey taking place in a way that pollutes the climate and the environment as little as possible. In addition to direct travel costs, the grant may also be used to offset emissions that your form of travel produces.

The mobility grant cannot be applied for travel occurring from a foreign location to Finland. The country of departure does not need to be Finland, however.

The grant does not cover general living costs accrued during travel or in Finland. The budget may not include a daily allowance for the duration of the trip. It is not possible to apply for both a working grant and an expenditure grant in the same application; working must be funded by other means. Receiving a mobility grant does not preclude you from receiving a working grant from future application rounds of the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s central and regional funds (October Round of Applications or January Round of Applications).

Mobility grants cannot be used for trips included in undergraduate studies or for costs related to undergraduate studies taken abroad.

The destination specified in the mobility grant application may not be retrospectively changed and the trip must last at least one week. The Finnish Cultural Foundation will not permit a change of purpose for these reasons; instead, the grant will be considered to be cancelled. The dates of travel and the content of the artistic work plan may change, and no change of purpose application need be submitted to the Foundation for this; the changes are reported when the grant is cleared using the Online Service for Grantees.

How to apply

Applications should be submitted using the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Online Application Service during the August Round of Applications. Applications close at 4 pm Finnish time on the last day of the application period.

In the August Round of Applications, you may apply either for a residency offered by the Finnish Cultural Foundation or for a mobility grant, not both.

The form will guide you in filling out an application. The work plan summary must include the destination, duration and dates of travel, as well as a concise description of the project’s content. A more comprehensive work plan (maximum three pages) may be included with the application. Applicants must list their relevant accomplishments and their motivation for the trip(s) in the designated fields. Finnish-speaking applicants should submit their applications in Finnish.

Appendices, statements and how to submit the application

Compulsory appendices to the application are:
•    curriculum vitae (maximum three pages)
•    work samples, e.g. a portfolio or photographs of artistic work
•    budget.

Additionally, the application may include relevant project-related documentation, such as a letter of acceptance or invite.

Large images (over 3 MB) and videos cannot be uploaded. We suggest that you provide a link to these files, for example to your website. Applications and appendices submitted through channels other than the application system will not be processed.

The online reference system of the Finnish Cultural Foundation is not available for use with this application. To include references, please scan and append them.

After submitting your application, please check that the application’s status in the system is marked as “sent”. Submitted applications may be cancelled using the application management function. No other changes can be made.

Grant reporting and commitment

The Finnish Cultural Foundation requires that applicants commit to following the instructions they receive as they apply for the grant, to reporting to the Foundation any external funding received during the processing of the application, and to abiding by the plan given in the application. Successful applicants must also agree to the guidelines for grantees, which can be found here.

Grantees are required to provide an online report of how the grant was used within one year of the final payment. Grant reports must be submitted using the Online Services for Grantees. Failure to provide a report may adversely affect the chances of receiving a grant in the future.

Grant Decisions

Decisions on mobility grants will be sent to applicants and published on the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s website. The estimated date of the release for the grant decisions is by the end of October.