Information about working grants
General information about working grants
Working grants are always awarded as personal grants in order to cover the costs of artistic work and living costs.
If the working grant is awarded for a period of at least four months, the recipient must take out pension insurance in accordance with the Farmers’ Pension Act (MYEL), which also covers grant recipients. Grant recipient must pay the insurance premiums themselves. The pension insurance portion is approximately 13–25% of the total amount of the grant. The cost of insurance premiums is calculated according to your and annual (MYEL) earnings as specified in your insurance decision. Further information about insurance premiums can be found on the Mela website.
Detailed terms and restrictions for using the specific type of grant can be found in the corresponding call for applications.
Working grants are not awarded:
- To working groups
- To begin retroactively
- To recipients of a supplementary artist pension
- To support studies or thesis work related to vocational qualifications or higher or lower university degrees
- The terms and conditions of grants awarded for artistic work may vary, so always read the call for applications carefully before applying for the grant.
Select the length of the grant period
Select the length of the grant period for which you are applying. If several different grant periods are offered and you would like to apply for all of them, select all grant periods. You can only be awarded a grant for the period that you have applied for.
You do not need to specify in euros the amount you are applying for. The only exception to this is library grants for writers and translators, the application form for which requires that you specify an exact amount between 4000 and 16,000 euros. Public display grants in turn are always awarded as six-month working grants, and the amount of each grant is 12,000 euros.
The grant periods for artist grants vary from six months to five years. Three-year and five-year artist grants are awarded primarily to professional artists who have distinguished themselves within their field. One-year and half-year grants are also awarded to young artists and those who are at the start of their artistic careers. In addition, artist grants for up to ten years are periodically awarded within certain artforms to artists of exceptionally high merit (Artist Professor grants).