Currently 4 active audio, sound and music grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in the EU. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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The NORMA Fonds redistributes copyright remuneration collected by Stichting NORMA into cultural, social and professional projects involving performing artists, and is one of the few Dutch schemes with four intakes a year and a genuinely short cycle. Both arts-sector organisations and individual arts professionals may apply, though the applicant needs a bank account and legal footing and cannot be a BIS-funded institution. The project must centre on performing artists in the copyright sense, meaning people who perform a copyright-protected work: musicians, dancers, actors, voice actors. This fits live experimental music, sound performance and performative media-art work, but not object-based exhibitions or non-performative installation programmes. The maximum grant is EUR 10,000, the total project budget must stay under EUR 150,000, the applicant's annual budget under EUR 500,000, and at least a quarter of the project budget must be earned from audience income, so this is a top-up rather than a primary funding source. Budgets must honour NORMA's 2026 performer wage norms. Applications are submitted online during a one-month window each quarter; the next round runs 1 to 30 October 2026, closing at 23:59. TIMING RULE: decisions arrive no later than eight weeks after the deadline, and the premiere date must fall at least eight weeks after the application deadline. Organisations that already received a NORMA Fonds grant in 2024 or 2025 are excluded, and supporting staff may not exceed 2 FTE.
One of the best-known international artist residencies: established artists live and work in Berlin for a year (six months for film) and become part of the city's cultural scene. Applications are open in literature, music and sound, and film; visual arts fellows are nominated by a jury and cannot apply. ELIGIBILITY: established artists with their own voice and standing, no upper age limit; students and recent graduates are not eligible (doctoral students are). German nationals and artists residing primarily in Germany are excluded, with narrow exceptions for German dual nationals abroad and recent arrivals. Alumni cannot reapply. Window opened 19 October 2026; deadline 15 December 2026, 23:59 CET.
France Culture and LaScam offer two EUR 5,000 grants (Brouillon d'un reve) to write a first creative audio documentary in the spirit of L'Experience, France Culture's strand of auteur sound documentaries. The target format is a 57'30 documentary for broadcast or a native podcast series with variable episode length. WHO: authors writing their first creative audio documentary, in French; reportage, news programmes and more classic documentaries are excluded. WHAT YOU GET: EUR 5,000 to fund the writing; production and inclusion in France Culture's output are decided separately afterwards by its Fictions et Creation department. APPLICATION: email bourses.documentaires@radiofrance.com with a 5-line summary (max 500 characters), the intended duration, a two-page PDF (statement of intent plus a note on the sound design), names, detailed CV and contact details, optional links to earlier work, and an IBAN. The committee meets in mid-January 2027 and results are announced by 5 February 2027. Submission window: 20 October 2026, 08:00 to 20 December 2026, 23:59 (Paris time).
La Scam's Brouillon d'un reve Sonore category funds documentary, educational or informational audio works for radio or podcast: reportage, narrative, portrait, chronicle, interview and testimony. WHAT YOU GET: a development bourse of EUR 2,500 to EUR 6,000, paid directly to the author 4 to 5 weeks after contract signing. ELIGIBILITY: explicitly no age, residence or nationality restrictions, and open to non-members, though the application process and repertoire are in French. RULES: one application per year across all Brouillon d'un reve categories; the same project may be submitted at most twice; past laureates must wait three years before reapplying. APPLICATION: rolling, via the online form on the Scam site, with monthly consultation slots running September to July; contact brouillondunreve@scam.fr. The fund leans documentary rather than experimental radio art, but it is a solidly current cash fund for radio and podcast authorship.