With the UK voting today on an in/out referendum on EU membership, many are asking what has the EU done for the UK’s creative industries? The stats, at least, suggest quite a lot.
The following figures are provided by the British Council’s Creative Europe Desk UK, the EU funding programme led by the British Council and BFI with a consortium of partners in the UK (Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Welsh Government).
The remit of the Creative Europe Desk UK is to raise awareness of the opportunities offered by the funding programme in the UK’s creative sector and to assist prospective applicants with their applications to Creative Europe.
In numbers:
- During its first two years (2014-15) Creative Europe supported 228 UK cultural and creative organisations and audio-visual companies and the cinema distribution of 84 UK films in other European countries with grants totalling €40m.
- Through Creative Europe’s MEDIA sub-programme, €28.5m was invested in the UK’s audio-visual sector: 85 UK companies and 53 UK cinemas in the Europa Cinemas network benefitted directly from grants totalling €16m and 84 British films had their distribution supported in other European countries with €12.5m investment.
- Through Creative Europe’s Culture sub-programme, 93 cultural, creative and heritage organisations in the UK benefitted from €11.3m worth of grants
All projects with UK involvement in 2014-2015 are listed here:
creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects
Results in 2016, and the 2014-15 biannual reports with UK involvement are listed here: creativeeuropeuk.eu/results
And the official results are published on the EU Commission website:
eacea.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/selection-results_en
