EFFEA will fund around 50 cross-border residencies for 2027, and the festival applies, not the artist

The European Festivals Association opened EFFEA Call #5 on 1 September. It will support around 50 artistic residencies taking place in 2027, bringing together what the association says will be at least 150 festivals.

There are two formats. Discovery awards 40 grants of 8,000 euros for artists early in their careers, and Springboard awards 10 grants of 15,000 euros for artists already established at home and ready to work internationally.

Each residency needs at least three festivals from three eligible countries, one leading and at least two partners. Circus is named in the eligible disciplines, alongside contemporary dance, theatre, puppetry and street art, and artists can be individuals, collectives, companies or ensembles of any age.

The line worth reading twice: applications are submitted online by the leading festival. An artist cannot enter this alone, and the grants are awarded to festivals, with the call saying nothing about what share reaches the artist.

Applications close on 3 November. The association is running four online sessions, all Tuesdays from 11.00 to 12.00 CEST, on 15 and 29 September and 13 and 20 October.

Eligibility runs on a defined country list, with France among them, and Switzerland, Turkey and the UK able to take part as partner festivals only. Artists need nationality or legal residence in an eligible country, which is the detail to check before anything else.

So the work here is not writing an application. It is being the artist a programmer already has in mind when they sit down to write one.