Creative Industries Fund NL

Overview

The Creative Industries Fund NL is the Dutch cultural fund for design, architecture, and digital culture. It operates within the context of the Dutch government’s culture policy and focuses on all the designing disciplines and on E-culture in a broad sense. The Fund strives to make a substantial contribution to the quality of professional design practice within and especially between the disciplines of architecture, design, and digital culture. Part of this endeavor is the interdisciplinary interplay between the cultural, social, and economic domains. The Fund supports exceptional and innovative projects and activities of designers, makers, and cultural institutions in the creative industries. The aim of all the grants and programs is to enrich the creative sector and through cooperation to strive towards a culture- and knowledge-driven creative economy. The Fund promotes the production and presentation of architecture, design, and digital culture from the Netherlands at home and abroad. At the same time, the Fund contributes to the formulation of broadly supported design solutions for societal issues through its grants and programs. The Fund has an annual budget of about €15 million. The greatest portion of this budget comes from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), complemented by a budget from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BuZa) for internationalization, and a budget from the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment (IenM) for three stimulation programs − Innovative Forms of Commissioning, Healthcare Environments, and Education Environments − within the Action Agenda for Spatial Design (Actieagenda Ruimtelijk Ontwerp). This means that the Fund is operating within several policy contexts. It supports hundreds of projects in the Netherlands and beyond every year. The Fund employs 25 members of staff and is advised by more than 100 experts in its evaluation of applications. The executive director is advised by a selection committee of three members for the nomination of new committee members.

Investment Focus

• Projects must be innovative and contribute to the quality of professional design practice.
• Applications are evaluated by a selection committee of experts.
• Projects should aim to address societal issues through design solutions.