What’s going on?  

The EU funds culture through several programmes, and is now designing its budget and programmes for 2028-2034. One of them is Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme. 

Currently, Horizon contains a dedicated space for culture research called Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society with a budget of roughly €2.28 billion. Despite years of high-demand and widely celebrated projects, EU decision-makers removed culture from their proposal for the next Horizon programme (2028–2034).  

Other opportunities for funding in the current EU budget include the Single Market Programme and the Digital Europe Programme. Through targeted calls, the latter has funded over €11 million for the digitalisation of cultural heritage including projects such as Europeana, more commonly referred to as the European data space for cultural heritage. Under the next budget for 2028-2034, these funding opportunities are also at risk. Instead, the EU has proposed a new programme — the European Competitiveness Fund — which mentions culture only marginally and provides no structural place for it.  

As it stands, dedicated funding for culture and creativity isare absent from both Horizon Europe and the European Competitiveness Fund, which together are worth €409 billion.  

With negotiations on the next EU budget ongoing between the EU institutions, now is the time for urgent action to make the case for culture and artistic research in the next budget. 

Who’s doing what?  

Together with a coalition of cultural networks we started the Name, Place, Fund campaign to secure the presence of culture for in research, innovation and competitiveness in the 2028-2034 budget. The campaign focuses specifically on the Horizon Europe and European Competitiveness Fund (ECF). It is coordinated by us and the Artistic Research Alliance (composed of Culture Action Europe, ELIA, AEC – European Association of Conservatoires, CILECT, European Association for Architectural Education, EQ-Arts | Enhancing Quality in the Arts, GEECT, MusiQuE – Music Quality Enhancement, Society for Artistic Research) which together represent around 1,200 institutions involved in artistic-cultural research and cultural heritage in Europe. 

 The goal of the campaign is to influence the European Commission, European Parliament, and the Council of the EU during interinstitutional negotiations and to ask for three things: 

• NAME: Put culture in the title of a Horizon Europe window: ‘Culture and Global Societal Challenges,’ and put culture in the title of a Competitiveness Fund policy window.  

• PLACE: Give culture a dedicated structural component in both programmes. When we say ‘dedicated component,’ we mean a dedicated budget line, work programmes, and calls. A horizontal principle is not enough for culture, nor is a line inside someone else’s policy window. Culture deserves a home of its own.   

• FUND: We call for €5 billion to be allocated towards culture and artistic research in Horizon Europe, and €3 billion to be allocated towards culture and creative industries in the European Competitiveness Fund. 

So far we have submitted amendments to the EU institutions, including to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, to provide concrete proposals through which culture can be meaningfully supported in Horizon and the ECF. You can read them here: Horizon (before ITRE’s draft report); Horizon (after ITRE’s draft report); European Competitiveness Fund (before ITRE’s draft report); European Competitiveness Fund (after ITRE’s draft report).  

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The Name, Place, Fund social media campaign was also launched on Wednesday 6 May 2026, tagging relevant influential decision-makers and calling for change. We now wish to bring visibility to our campaign, its goals, and to share the experiences of the cultural and creative sectors with Horizon Europe, artistic research, etc.

For that, we need your active involvement.

Invite your members and partners to join the campaign !