Currently 19 active paid grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in the EU, across AI, arts, film, research, tech and cross-disciplinary practice. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Every entry is funded, no exposure-only calls. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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Open call for 3 cultural facilitators ("Social Dreamers") to work directly with diverse stakeholders, lead workshops, build spaces for dialogue, and contribute concrete tools for the cultural sector. The role combines facilitation, artistic thinking, mentoring and interdisciplinary collaboration; outputs include stakeholder manifestos, a Shared Future Vision Manifesto, and the development/testing of an AI-based tool for future scenarios. Eligible: individual professionals in the cultural and creative sector with experience in (a) group facilitation through artistic practices, (b) future visioning and scenario building, and (c) stakeholder engagement and management. Must reside in a Creative Europe country and be proficient in English plus the local language of the selected profile. Timeline: Open House online 28 April 2026; application deadline 13 May 2026 23:59 CET; selection by 10 June 2026; orientation late June 2026; 7-day Social Dreaming Camp 27 July to 2 August 2026 in Hungary; workshop phase July 2026 to January 2027; Future Vision phase February to April 2027 (final workshop in Portugal). Two-step selection: written application then online interview for shortlisted candidates. Apply in English via https://forms.gle/PSH9qVvDwUNR4x8q6.
Six-month residential fellowship for outstanding young thinkers (under 35) who, in addition to producing strong work in their primary field, want to pursue a project in a different discipline, following Einstein's own cross-disciplinary example. Eligibility: candidates must be under 35 and hold a university degree in the humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences. Whether the applicant holds, or is working toward, a PhD is not relevant. Crucially, the proposed project must be significantly different in content (and preferably in field and form) from the applicant's previous work; this is NOT a dissertation-research grant and is NOT for completing an academic study already underway. The project need not be finished during the fellowship, but can be the start of a longer one. Selection criteria: quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed project, plus the superior intellectual development of the applicant. Application materials: CV, a 2-page project proposal, and two letters of recommendation, all submitted via the online form. All documents must be received by 15 May 2026. Funded by the Wittenstein Foundation (previously funded by the ZEIT Foundation Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius 2007 to 2009, then the Daimler and Benz Foundation 2010 to 2022).
Three-month residency at Vila 31 in Tirana with 8 studio-apartments. Open to artists, collectives, researchers, curators and writers of all nationalities with at least 5 years of professional activity and national/international exhibition record. SOLO and COLLECTIVE tracks across visual arts, performance, digital, curatorial, writing, plus research in humanities, social sciences, cultural studies, history, technology and ecology. Up to 30 residents selected per year. No output required, but Open Studios participation is mandatory. Selection committee includes Alicia Knock (Centre Pompidou), Adela Demetja, Adam Szymczyk, Nora Razian (Art Jameel), Lucia Pietroiusti (Hartwig Art Foundation), Raphael Fonseca (Denver Art Museum). Notifications July 2026.
Supports independent investigative journalism across Europe, well-suited to surveillance, AI, platform governance and data-driven investigations. Cross-border team requirement: at least two professional journalists (freelance or staff) from at least two different countries. Next round after this one expected 2026-06-26.
Open call for an artist residency reimagining AI at the EU Policy Lab. The 15,000 EUR contracted budget covers expert fees, allowance, accommodation and travel during on-site work.
Residency call for artists, researchers and curators to develop artistic or research projects around archival photographic and audiovisual media at the Centre d'Imatges de Tarragona. Selected applicants receive €900 in project support, free accommodation for up to 5 days, and access to a 1.5 million-strong archive. Resulting work must be publicly presented in November 2026 in a format of the artist's choosing.
Open call for an international artist-in-residence at the Science and Art Lab at TU Braunschweig, in cooperation with the BrightBrain research consortium, as part of the Ecoversity initiative. The residency aims to connect artistic and scientific perspectives. Artists are invited to propose their own research-based projects related to microphotonics, biomedicine, technology, neurodegenerative diseases, neurobiology, neuromorphic computing, and microelectronics (the current resident is collaborating with the Nitride Technology Center on light transmission in digital applications including micro-LEDs and neuromorphic computing). Strong fit for art-science, sensory translation, critical-data, and neuroscience-informed practices. Eligibility: international artists; should show interest in biomedicine, technology and innovation in their artistic work; be comfortable working in interdisciplinary environments; be motivated to collaborate with experts from science, culture and education; be willing to participate in two public events during the residency; and be able to communicate in English. Application by PDF to artist-residency@tu-braunschweig.de with subject 'BrightBrain residency' (if files exceed 25 MB, upload via the TU Braunschweig Nextcloud link in the call). Application deadline 25 May 2026. Jury decision expected end of June 2026; residency starts from September 2026 (exact date flexible). Free to apply.
Annual residency programme at WIELS (Brussels-based centre for contemporary art). This call is open EXCLUSIVELY to Belgian artists or artists who have been living and working in Belgium for at least three years, and who have contributed to the Brussels contemporary art scene during that period. An independent jury selects four artists, each awarded a €3,000 artistic recognition grant. The grant is a distinction supporting the quality of the artistic practice; there is no production requirement or contractual service obligation attached. Residency period is six months in 2027 (January-June or July-December block, applicant choice). Application deadline 31 May 2026. Application materials via online form: personal information; artistic approach (max 250 words); statement of intent describing projects, ideas and expectations for the residency (max 250 words); three professional references (name, email, phone, profession); and portfolio + CV via Option 1 (Dropbox/Google Drive link with up to 10 images/videos plus a numbered descriptive list with title, date, technique, dimensions and ~50-word description per item, plus CV) or Option 2 (PDF with up to 10 captioned images plus CV). Videos may also be hosted on YouTube/Vimeo (with password if needed); videos of still works are not accepted. All share links must be set to 'anyone with the link can view'; links requiring access requests will not be considered. Questions: residency@wiels.org (do not email about results, notifications will be sent). Free to apply. Note: this is a Belgium-restricted call and is not open to artists without a Belgian / 3+ years-in-Belgium connection.
Open call from Ohme (Brussels-based research and curatorial platform at the intersection of art and science) for a digital visual artist or collective to develop an artistic project in residence with EXPERIENCE, an ERC-funded research programme led by Prof. Axel Cleeremans at the Centre for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences (CRCN), Université libre de Bruxelles. EXPERIENCE investigates the nature of subjective experience (phenomenology) and builds 3D maps of 'phenomenal space' from large datasets of similarity and preference judgments. The selected artist works directly with these empirical datasets (similarity judgments, subjective preference data describing how people perceive, compare and value conscious experience) as primary creative material, not as illustration. Possible directions include information design that critically engages with visualising consciousness data; generative or algorithmic works using subjective valuation datasets as compositional grammar; data visualisation as artistic practice; creative coding exploring neural/latent space and perception/emotion/subjectivity; and critical or poetic approaches to measuring/mapping inner experience. Eligibility: visual artist or collective connected to the contemporary art field of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (live, work, or have a professional practice within the French-speaking art community of Belgium); established practice in digital art, new media, computational art, data visualisation or information design used as artistic practice; experience working with data as creative material (e.g. Processing, p5.js, openFrameworks, TouchDesigner, Max/MSP, or equivalent); critical engagement with the tools/systems behind information production and dissemination; interest in mind/perception/cognition/neuroscience; available in person in Brussels September-November 2026 and for the December restitution; English proficiency (working language); French and/or Dutch appreciated. Ohme is NOT looking for artists who already work on consciousness or neuroscience, but practitioners whose existing methods could be mobilised in this scientific context. Sample EXPERIENCE datasets: https://osf.io/suqkp/overview?view_only=fdc73f1485664a2c9c7571e0c62abe6a (paper: 'Exploring the role of micro-valence in the phenomenal space', https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niag005). Selection by interdisciplinary jury of EXPERIENCE and Ohme representatives; interviews with top three candidates by phone/video/in-person in late June 2026; selected artist announced late June 2026. Application: single PDF in English to opencall@ohme.be (subject: 'Application Experience Lab') by 31 May 2026, 23:59 CET, including up-to-date CV (English), portfolio (English), 1-page motivation text (English) on interest in the residency and consciousness theme plus technical competences, and the completed contact form (downloadable from Ohme's site). Free to apply.
Summer artist residency in the mountain village of Lozio for individuals and collectives to create site-specific artworks, with preference for Land Art, Street Art and participatory art. Residents receive a weekly stipend, shared accommodation, workspace, cultural activities and co-production support; selected artworks become donations to the Municipality.
Situated Creative Practices for the Pluriverse (SIT-PLU) is a Creative Europe cooperation project tackling socio-ecological challenges through cross-disciplinary research and context-specific artistic interventions. Drawing on the Zapatista concept of the pluriverse ("a world where many worlds fit") and buen vivir, the project foregrounds communal interdependence and human/more-than-human relationships. Selected residents engage with one specific context for one year and develop new forms of creative intervention/cultural mediation. Four host contexts available for 2027: Baltan Laboratories with Wondermash (Meuse Delta, NL), Lungomare on Bolzano riverscapes (IT), Idensitat on sacrifice zones near the Besos river mouth (ES), ZEMOS98 on local sustainable energy-transition models in Galicia (ES). Two-phase application: Phase 1 deadline 31 May 2026 23:59 CET (motivation letter, CV, portfolio of up to 5 projects, draft proposal targeting one host) — results by mid-July; three shortlisted practitioners per host then develop a more specific proposal in dialogue with the host institution (Phase 2 deadline 14 August 2026, results end of September). Each host runs an online Q&A between 11 and 15 May 2026. Enquiries: sitplu.project@luca-arts.be.
Small to medium-sized R&D grants for projects making federated and self-hosted internet services easier to deploy and operate at scale. Funds practical work on portable Fediverse-style infrastructure, hosted Mastodon-like or PeerTube-like services, secure email, private cloud and other tools that support decentralisation and digital self-determination. Open to individuals and organisations of any type; results released under free or open-source licences. Deadline 1 June 2026, 12:00 CEST.
Small to medium-sized R&D grants for projects that strengthen Fediversity, an effort to bring easy-to-use hosted cloud services with service portability and personal freedom at their core to everyone. Built on NixOS for declarative, reproducible, reliable deployment of Fediverse services (PeerTube, Mastodon, Owncast, Lemmy), email, VPN, private cloud storage, wikis and more. Project results released under open source licences. Deadline 1 June 2026, 12:00 CEST.
Small to medium-sized R&D grants for free and open source efforts aligned with privacy-preserving digital payments. Build new GNU Taler capabilities, auxiliary tools, UX, FOSS-app and open-standard integrations (P2P micropayments in messengers, social media, video conferencing), or merchant-backend improvements. All results released under a free or open-source licence. Strong projects can scale up via NGI0 Core. Deadline 1 June 2026, 12:00 CEST.
Small to medium-sized R&D grants to help reclaim the public nature of the internet across the full technology spectrum: libre silicon, middleware, P2P infrastructure, end-user applications, open standards, open data and AI, open science, creative commons and open educational resources. Project results released under free or open-source licences. Aimed at troubleshooters tackling hard, important internet-commons challenges. Total programme: €21.6m through 2027. Deadline 1 June 2026, 12:00 CEST.
Residential research sabbaticals at CAIS, explicitly open to excellent scholars AND practitioners across all career stages and disciplines (not academia-only). Funds individual projects on the societal impact of digital transformation, including pure research and applied projects that develop new theories, methods or perspectives for practice. Project must be self-contained with specific milestones and produce an independent output suitable for short-timeframe publication: peer-reviewed paper or conference contribution, book chapter, policy paper, or prototype. Fellows join a vibrant interdisciplinary research community with regular joint activities (breakfast Tuesdays, colloquium and dinner Wednesdays, occasional workshops Thursdays) and an international network of alumni, working groups and affiliates. In Germany, full and compensatory grants are not subject to social security contributions and are usually tax-exempt; fellows resident abroad should verify their own tax position. Note: CAIS is currently reviewing the application format and selection process for the next call, so details may change. Next call publishes at the beginning of June 2026; deadline 23 July 2026 for fellowships in the period October 2027 to March 2028. Contact: Dr. Esther Laufer, esther.laufer@cais-research.de.
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships support researchers holding a PhD who wish to carry out research abroad, acquire new skills, develop their careers and have international mobility. Open to excellent researchers of any nationality. The 2026 call opened 9 April 2026 and closes 9 September 2026 at 17:00 CEST; notification of call results expected February 2027; grant agreement signature April 2027. Two strands: European Postdoctoral Fellowships (12 to 24 months in Europe) and Global Postdoctoral Fellowships (12 to 24 months outside Europe + 12-month return phase in Europe). The project must take place in a country different from where the researcher has worked or studied. Approximately 1,600 projects funded. Apply via the EU Funding & Tenders Opportunities Portal; submission is by the fellow plus host institution. Eligibility: researcher must have a PhD at the call deadline (or have submitted thesis with all requirements met), maximum 8 years full-time-equivalent research experience post-PhD, must comply with the mobility rule (no more than 12 months in the host country in the 36 months before the deadline).
Annual jury-selected call for media-art projects designed for outdoor spaces with high public visibility, addressing contemporary social issues with a sustainability focus. International exchange, collaboration and interdisciplinarity are key. Aimed at artists and cultural workers from Baden-Württemberg; open to artistic, cultural, scientific and creative-industry institutions from all over the world. Excludes school/university coursework and already-realised projects. The 2025 deadline (15 May) has passed; 2026 round dates TBC, check the page for updates.
Rolling general project funding for smaller media-art works, events and research. Covers interdisciplinary projects across music, theatre, dance, visual arts, literature, film, architecture, socioculture, intercultural and interreligious dialogue, and children's and youth culture. For artists, professionals, initiatives and institutions based in Karlsruhe (group applications must include at least one person/institution with first residence or registered office in Karlsruhe). Applied for via the City of Karlsruhe online application; selected by UCCoMA Office staff.