A year in Rome at the Villa Médicis with a €42,000 bursary, open to French speakers of any nationality
The Académie de France à Rome, a French public institution under the Ministry of Culture, takes up to 16 artists and researchers a year for a 12-month residency at the Villa Médicis in Rome. Each one gets a €42,000 gross bursary and free accommodation. This intake runs from 1 September 2027 to 11 August 2028.
It closes on Friday 16 October 2026 at 12:00 noon Paris time. There is no nationality condition: you need to speak French, and the whole dossier has to be in French.
The residency is for creation, experimentation or research. Pensionnaires get free accommodation for the whole stay and, where relevant, a work space. They also have access to shared spaces: a carpentry workshop, a library and a photo lab.
It is a real move. You commit to living at the Villa for the year, with no more than 30 days outside Italy in total, and no single trip of more than two weeks without the Académie's permission. A partner and children can come when space allows. Pets cannot.
Selection has two stages. The jury reads every dossier and answers each candidate by email in the week of 25 January 2027. Shortlisted candidates are auditioned on 2 and 3 February 2027 in Paris, or by video call if they can't travel. The Académie calls both dates indicative.
The jury is chaired by the Académie's director, with France's director general for artistic creation or their representative, and six people appointed each year.
A collective project is allowed, and each selected member gets their own bursary. From this intake, one pensionnaire in art history can also get a one-year post-residency at the INHA in Paris.
- ·Anyone aged 18 or over on the closing date who speaks French, whatever their nationality. Some knowledge of Italian language and culture is advised, not required.
- ·People already established in their professional life.
- ·Disciplines, in the Académie's own terms: all disciplines of literary and artistic creation, the métiers d'art, and research in art history or the restoration of artworks and monuments. Circus is not named.
- ·One dossier per person, and you can't have been a pensionnaire before.