International collaboration by English organisations and practitioners has begun to adapt to the combined challenge of our exit from the European Union and pandemic restrictions. ‘Live’ international activity reduced slightly before the pandemic (due to regulatory barriers) and then more dramatically once Covid-19 lockdowns came into place. However, virtual collaboration during lockdowns allowed a wider range of organisations to collaborate internationally and across a broader geographical reach, especially across Asia. Now, in the wake of the pandemic, physical international collaboration and exchange have resumed but have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

The Arts Council invests in a range of international activity across our funding streams. In 2022/23 National Lottery Project Grants invested £16,824,296 in 428 projects featuring international activity, and through Developing Your Creative Practice we made 394 awards worth £3,738,609 to support individuals to undertake international research and development. Of the 985 National Portfolio and Investment Principles Support Organisations awarded funding for 2023-26, 491 plan to ‘strengthen the international connections of cultural organisations and creative practitioners, including co-production and touring’.

As the last of the Creative Europe co-operation projects including UK organisations come to an end, Arts Council England will continue to develop new partnerships and networks with key European nations and regions, with a focus on Germany, France and Italy. We will also work with our partners in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland to deepen our relationships with the Nordic and Baltic States.

International mobility for artists continues to be a shared commitment for the four UK arts councils and a second enhanced round of the Four Nations International Collaboration Fund will open during 2023/24. We will also jointly continue our support to Arts Infopoint UK which offers mobility guidance to promoters and artists wanting to work and perform in the UK and, through its membership of the On the Move Network, to UK artists developing projects overseas. 

The Arts Council continues to invest in major events where the UK hosts the world and which offer opportunities to forge links between creatives based in this country and their counterparts around the world. In 2023/24, these include Eurovision in Liverpool (May 2023) and the International Society of Performing Arts (ISPA) Congress in Manchester (June 2023).

We also invest to support the ambitions of our cultural organisations to showcase their work at key marketplaces, including Shape’s plans for a disability-focused pavilion in Venice in 2024 and Xtrax’s presentations at La Merce and Fira Tarrega in Catalonia. We will continue our investment in the Horizon showcase in Edinburgh (theatre and dance) and have agreed a further three-year investment in both Under the Radar Festival in New York (theatre) and British Underground’s Future Arts & Culture programme at South by South-West in Austin, Texas (new technologies). 

A focus of our work over the next year will be to build on the success of city-to-city international partnerships, such as those between Manchester, Aarhus and Aalborg, and the more recent animation-focused compact between Bradford, Viborg and York. As part of our deepening work around place, we will look for further opportunities to encourage and support more of these international city-to-city partnerships.

Over the next 12 months, the completion of our new systems for export licensing and government indemnity will provide both better experiences for users and new data relating to the export and import of cultural property which will inform future policy to support the growth of the sector. We will also build on our initial research into climate standards for object loans to develop agreements with international partners and sector bodies to remove unnecessary climate standards for object loans.

The Arts Council believes strongly that future international collaboration and exchange must be built on the principles and practice of environmental responsibility. We will look for opportunities to collaborate with other arts funders and green agencies such as Creative Carbon Scotland, Theatre Forum Ireland and Julie’s Bicycle to develop and embed these principles in international cultural practice. This will include working with the British Council to establish a set of environmentally responsible benchmarks. In 2023/24 we will jointly map existing research into environmentally responsible approaches to international activity before convening international-facing producers and artists to construct a greener vision for international exchange and collaboration in the future. 

‘Q½/¾’ – This refers to the different quarters of a financial year ‘Date’ – This is the point when more information will become available. At that point we publish a link to that information under the relevant Action. ‘2022/23 Budget’– We only publish budgets in relation to programmes where there is an open application process. The published figure represents the amount of funding Arts Council England has allocated to this Action. This figure may not represent our full investment in an Action. Funding may have been allocated in previous years or may be planned in future years or may come from programmes that are separately budgeted (eg National Lottery Project Grants).