Bilaga A2: Programme Report 2025 for Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture
Number of applications | Number of applications approved | % approved | Amount applied for (EUR) | Amount granted (EUR) | % granted | |
Mobility Funding | 1 508 | 250 | 16,6 | 2 389 880 | 364 565 | 15,3 |
Network Funding | 184 | 21 | 11,4 | 5 335 838 | 695 260 | 13,0 |
Support for Artist Residencies | 89 | 12 | 13,5 | 3 551 094 | 487 872 | 13,7 |
Support for Artist Residencies/Ukraina | 40 | 6 | 15,0 | 1 675 659 | 240 790 | 14,4 |
TOTAL | 1 821 | 289 | 15,9 | 12 952 471 | 1 788 487 | 14 |
The aim of the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture (NBMP) is to enhance the cultural and artistic cooperation in the Nordic and the Baltic countries. Nordic and Baltic ministers for culture have agreed to promote mobility as a tool to strengthen the conditions for cultural and artistic cooperation in the Nordic-Baltic region contributing towards the Nordic Council of Ministers’ vision to make the Nordic region the most sustainable and integrated region in the world by 2030. The NBMP offers three different forms of funding: Mobility funding, Network funding and Funding for artist residencies. Network funding is divided into Short-term and Long-term funding.
Expert groups that are comprised of professionals from Nordic and Baltic countries assess the applications for the programme and make decisions on grants. The experts meet a pre-set number of times throughout the year to discuss the applications and make the final decisions on grant allocations. The current expert group has been nominated for a three-year period 2024-2026. In 2025, three application rounds were held for Mobility funding, one round for Long-term network funding, two for Short-term network funding and one round for Funding for artist residencies. Also, there was an additional funding round to support Ukrainian artists as extra budget allocation from Nordic Ministers of cooperation (MR-SAM) was channelled through Funding for artist residencies.
All experts are annually invited to a joint expert meeting to exchange experiences and to discuss questions related to the evaluation of the grants. In 2025, this meeting was held at Hanaholmen, the Swedish-Finnish cultural centre. The theme for the experts’ own meeting was artificial intelligence and the programme included a keynote from the University of Helsinki as well as discussion on how the development of AI affects grant applications and the evaluation of them. The experts’ annual joint meeting was arranged in connection with cultural policy conference with the topic Cultural Policy Conference: Art and Culture as critical infrastructure in a New Era. The conference was a collaboration between Nordic Culture Point and Hanaholmen. The programme included Nordic and Baltic speakers on themes related to funding for arts and culture; how to understand better the needs for areas and regions outside capital areas; how to understand interplays between different levels of funding in the Nordic countries and how to find new ways of empowering the culture and arts fiels when national culture budgets are being cut.
In 2025, the NBMP has granted a total of €1 547 697 (excluding the additional residency round to support Ukrainian artists). The NBMP received a total of 1 781 applications to the ordinary annual application rounds which is 70 applications less compared to the previous year (1 851 applications in 2024). The number of applications increased for both Network funding and Funding for artist residencies but Mobility funding received slightly less applications than the year before. In 2025, the number of applications that were granted funding from the programme amounted to 283 in total. In terms of percentages, 15,8 % of all applications were granted funding. Furthermore, 13,7 % of the total amount applied for was granted which is a lower percentage compared to 16 % in 2024. These figures show that there is a great need for funds for Nordic-Baltic collaboration and the programme finds its target groups.
Additional funding to support Ukrainian artists allocated by the Ministers for Nordic Co-operation (MR-SAM) in 2022 and 2024 was continued with a new decision by the ministers in May 2025 and a third round of funding could be arranged in the autumn 2025. Six applications out of 40 applicants were granted and in terms of euros 14,4 % of the applied amount could be granted. The additional funding has been much appreciated by the residency organisations and in 2025 there are also more results available from the previous rounds. More information on the additional application round and results from previous rounds are presented in a separate chapter of this programme report.
Ukraine Solidarity Recidencies Program
was one of the six projects that received
extraordinary funding in 2025.
Photo: Dana Neilson
was one of the six projects that received
extraordinary funding in 2025.
Photo: Dana Neilson