Artists' international development fund

The programme offers early stage development opportunities for individual freelance and self employed artists based in England to spend time building links with artists, organisations and/or creative producers in another country. 

In November 2012 we announced the 26 successful applicants to the second round of funding and in July 2012 we announced the 26 successful applicants to the first round. You can download the full lists using the link on the right. Deadlines for future rounds in the 2013-14 financial year will be announced soon. 

The programme is one of the targeted grants in our strategic funding programme.

Our aims for the programme

We have developed the Artists' international development fund to help us achieve our aims within goal 1 of our 10-year framework Achieving great art for everyone: talent and artistic excellence are thriving and celebrated. We want artists to be open to international perspectives and to expand their horizons. You can find out more about this in the Arts Council Plan 2011-15.

The British Council and the Arts Council want the programme to produce:

• a cadre of artists and creative practitioners in the UK (and also globally) who have experienced the benefits of international working between the UK and other countries and are advocates for it among their peers
• an increase in the amount of international collaboration among artists between the UK and other countries across the arts and creative industries
• artistic development for artists

Value and number of awards

Artists are able to apply for small grants (minimum of £1,000 up to £5,000). You can only apply to the Artists' international development programme once in any financial year.

If you are interested in applying for the fund, visit the eligibility and how to apply pages.

We have limited funds available and expect that there will be a significant demand for investment. It is likely that there will be good applications that we will not be able to fund. You should also think about other sources of investment in case we are unable to award funding.

Information about other organisations that distribute Lottery grants can be found at www.lotteryfunding.org.uk. If you decide to make an application, we wish you every success.

Funding for film makers 

In parallel with the Artists' international development fund, the British Council are administering a separate fund for film makers designed to help emerging UK film talent travel with their work and reach new international audiences. The Travel Grant Fund will support makers of short films in the UK in showing their work at international film festivals.

Visit the British Council's website for further information.