In May 2022, the State Secretary for Culture and Media published a letter of outline in which she explained that the ministry is making extra resources available to stimulate recovery, innovation and growth in the sector. In this letter of outlines, the State Secretary focuses, among other things, on starting professionals within the sector. For a strong heritage and visual arts sector, it is essential that starting professionals can gain work experience in their field. For the development of knowledge, innovative working methods and connection with a broad and diverse public, the visual arts and heritage sector benefits from hiring new employees. With this grant, the Mondriaan Fund encourages starting professionals in the heritage and visual arts sector to give them the opportunity to develop.
Who is eligible?
This grant is intended for publicly accessible visual arts institutions, art venues, museums and other heritage institutions, such as archives with a public function, in the Netherlands and the Caribbean part of the Kingdom.
For what?
A contribution can be requested for the employment of a starting professional who has under five years of work experience in the heritage and/or visual arts sector and who has not previously been employed by the applying institution. A contribution can be requested for any position within the organisation. With this grant, the Mondriaan Fund wants to stimulate the professional career of starting professionals within heritage and art institutions.
How much?
The contribution of the Mondriaan Fund is a maximum of 90%, which comes to € 40,000 per position. The own contribution is at least 10%, which comes to € 4,444. The contribution concerns the gross salary costs of the starting professional and the associated employer’s costs. The available budget for the grant for Heritage Starting Professionals is € 1,485,000.
How and when to apply?
You can apply for a contribution to Heritage Starting Professionals through the Mondriaan Fund’s online application system. The deadline for submitting an application is 12 June 2023, before 17:00 (CEST) / 11:00 AM (AST). You can create an account on the website, for which you need to submit an application. This only applies if you don’t have an account yet. Applicants should take into account a processing time of 3 months after the deadline of the application round. A contribution cannot be awarded retroactively.
Conditions
- A contribution can be requested by publicly accessible visual arts institutions, art venues, museums and other heritage institutions such as archives with a public function, in the Netherlands and the Caribbean part of the Kingdom.
- To be eligible for this contribution, the starting professional must be employed. The applicant determines the duration of the appointment, but the maximum duration of the subsidy period for an appointment in the Netherlands is 2 years, in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom 4 years.
- The employment must be at least 24 hours per week
- Cultural institutions endorse the Fair Practice Code (click here to see the animation Fair Practice Code for information and tips), the Governance Code Culture and the Code Diversity & Inclusion. Application of the Fair Practice Code automatically means that the institution puts the artists’ fees guideline into practice.
Assessment
The submitted application with attachments will be checked for completeness by employees of the Mondriaan Fund. If complete, employees of the Mondriaan Fund will then assess the application. In case of doubt, or if the number of applications exceeds the available budget, the application will be submitted to an advisory committee that will advise on the allocation of a contribution to Heritage Starting Professionals.
If the subsidy ceiling is exceeded or if there is any doubt, the applications will be submitted to the advisory committee.
Procedure
A contribution to Heritage Starting Professionals is awarded if the board of the Mondriaan Fund makes a positive decision. In case of a positive decision, a reservation is made of the contribution. If the application relates to a new employee being recruited, an assessment will be made in two rounds. In the first round, the plan, which describes the job profile and the motivation for the job, is assessed. If the decision is positive, the contribution will be reserved for a maximum period of 6 months after the decision date. The institution is expected to maintain an open application procedure. The institution then has a maximum period of 6 months after the decision date to submit a recruited candidate to the Mondriaan Fund. The fund marginally checks the submitted profile description and CV. If this is assessed positively, the reservation will be released.
Checklist
In order to process the application, the Mondriaan Fund needs information: data that you can enter in the application form and documents that you can upload.
Tip: Gather the information before you start filling out the online application form. You can upload the attachments as a PDF. Note: do not exceed the number of pages if a maximum number of pages is indicated.
