Currently 7 active paid grants, fellowships and residencies taking place in Japan, across AI, arts, film, journalism, research, tech and cross-disciplinary practice. Many are open to applicants of any nationality; check each entry for residency and citizenship requirements. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
Subscribe: RSS feed · Calendar (.ics)
The EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee supports individuals and organisations developing projects between Japan and European Capitals of Culture (past, present or future) as well as other Culture Next member cities. PURPOSE: support travel for research, project planning, and collaboration, building creative networks aimed at realising Japan-Europe arts and culture projects. THEMES (for Japan-Europe collaborative projects): Youth Empowerment; Nature & Green; Diversity (DEI); Social Regeneration. Projects may include participants from other regions (e.g. Asia) joining a Japan-Europe project. TARGET APPLICANTS: members of European Capital of Culture teams; artists and project organisers (including curators, designers, etc.); researchers in culture/arts; social entrepreneurs. TIMING: applications must be submitted at least 6 weeks prior to the travel date; this cut-off covers travel in April 2026 - September 2026. DEADLINE: this card is for the 15 August 2026 cut-off (other cut-offs each have their own card). APPLY via the Culture Next collaboration page.
Call for abstracts for the POM (Politics of the Machines) conference in Fukuoka, hosted on Kyushu University's Ohashi Campus, organised around the theme of transduction. TRACKS: 01 The Landscape of Transduction: Infrastructural Entanglements of Energy, Data, and More-than-Human Life; 02 Parasitic Transductions Beyond the Human; 03 Real Machines: Computation, Subjectivity, and the Politics of Reality-Production; 04 Technogenetic Transductions across Fields of Experience: Affective Politics in/for Times of Crisis; 05 Transducing Disgust: Bodies, Technologies, and the Synthetic Uncanny; 06 Methoding Transduction: Sound, Data, Sonic Research; 07 Metabolic Worldviews and Hybrid Intelligences; 08 Fermentative Systems; 09 Unhearing Bodies: Life as Transduction; and 10, an open track for Speculations and Culturing Immature Ideas. FORMATS: academic papers, lecture-performances, artistic interventions and workshops, with proposals for alternative formats also encouraged; indicate the intended format in the submission. FACILITIES: beyond the Multi Purpose Building and Design Library, the campus offers a BioFoodLab (a Biolab and a Foodlab, each holding roughly 20 people) and an Acoustic Research Center (recording studio for up to 50, anechoic chamber for up to 15, echo chamber / reverberation room for up to 10, and semi-anechoic chamber for up to 20), which the organisers flag as relevant to tracks engaging sound, food, perception, signal and technological mediation. SUBMIT: an abstract of up to 500 words under one of the tracks; submissions without a track will be assigned to the most appropriate one. All submissions go through double-blind peer review, and authors of accepted abstracts are invited to present. The submission platform is described as opening soon. AFTER: accepted authors are invited to submit a full paper of up to 4,000 words including references, with a formal call for papers to follow. COSTS: note that this is a self-funded opportunity. Presenting requires paid conference registration, and POM cannot cover travel, accommodation, registration or other participation expenses. DEADLINE: 30 August 2026.
SOCIAL DIVE is Tokyo Biennale's open call, now in its third edition and, for 2027, open to both international and domestic applicants (the 2019 round drew roughly 1,500 overseas applications and the 2025 international-only round roughly 1,400). Artists and curators propose projects to be presented as part of Tokyo Biennale 2027, whose theme is 'From Me to Us'. THEME: general producer Masato Nakamura frames the biennale against an age of conflict and division, arguing that to avoid repeating memories of war, violence and exclusion we must reexamine the wisdom and cultural resources passed down across generations. Tokyo carries the memories of neighbourhoods dating back to the Edo period, twice suffered great loss through the Great Kanto Earthquake and the Second World War, and each time was rebuilt through the strength of its citizens; it is also an international city where different languages, memories, beliefs, wounds and hopes intersect. Quoting Kenzaburo Oe, 'I cannot live my life over again. But we can live our lives over again', the call proposes that when a single 'me' encounters others and reconnects relationships, a new consciousness of 'us' emerges. Art projects are treated as a form of cultural prescription, reconnecting people with people, people with places and people with memories. ELIGIBILITY: open to artists, curators, researchers, collectives and practitioners in related fields active in Japan and abroad; applicants must be 18 or older at the time of application; there are no restrictions on nationality, place of residence or base of operations; participants must be able to work in Tokyo during the designated period. ACCEPTED FORMATS: artwork creation, exhibitions, performances, video works, tours, workshops, participatory projects, research projects and curatorial projects. Applications cover both artwork production by artists and art project proposals by curators. APPLY via the Google Form linked from socialdive.jp/en (a Google account is required) during the application period 17 July to 30 September 2026, 23:59 JST. Read the official call documentation for full eligibility requirements and guidelines.
The Hayama Artist Residency introduces visual artists from around the world to Japanese culture and offers them their first gallery exhibition in Japan. The four-week residency takes place in Hayama, a coastal town in Kanagawa Prefecture about 1.5 hours from Tokyo. Selected artists receive roundtrip airfare to Tokyo, shared accommodation with one other resident, and USD 800 for meals and local transportation. A core element is a group exhibition during the stay, hosted in partnership with KOKI ARTS, a contemporary gallery in the Bakurocho art district of Tokyo. The program is open to visual artists over 21 working in any medium, based anywhere in the world, and applications are reviewed by the director and an international selection committee. The June 2027 cycle has an application deadline of September 30, 2026, with notification by December 15, 2026.
The Japan Foundation's flagship grant for organisations abroad mounting an exhibition introducing Japanese art and culture, explicitly covering overseas biennials and triennials that present Japanese artists. It is a partial-cost grant rather than a production budget: it pays toward shipping Japanese works, producing print or digital catalogues, and bringing Japanese artists, curators and specialists to the venue. That cost structure suits media arts, digital culture and art-and-science exhibitions well, where shipping technical work and hosting the artist for installation are the main cost drivers. It is explicitly designed for non-Japanese applicants: museums, galleries and comparable organisations outside Japan. Institutions only, so independent curators and artists cannot apply directly and must be hosted by an eligible institution. Exhibition content must introduce Japanese art and culture, so a Japanese artistic component is mandatory. Recent UK recipients include Tate Modern, the V&A and the Hayward Gallery, so the scheme skews toward established institutions. Applicants are asked to discuss eligibility with the relevant regional arts programme officer before applying. FLAG: full FY2027 guidelines were not yet published by Tokyo headquarters as of July 2026 and this deadline is the funder's own provisional date; reconfirm in autumn 2026.
The EU-Japan Fest Japan Committee supports individuals and organisations developing projects between Japan and European Capitals of Culture (past, present or future) as well as other Culture Next member cities. PURPOSE: support travel for research, project planning, and collaboration, building creative networks aimed at realising Japan-Europe arts and culture projects. THEMES (for Japan-Europe collaborative projects): Youth Empowerment; Nature & Green; Diversity (DEI); Social Regeneration. Projects may include participants from other regions (e.g. Asia) joining a Japan-Europe project. TARGET APPLICANTS: members of European Capital of Culture teams; artists and project organisers (including curators, designers, etc.); researchers in culture/arts; social entrepreneurs. TIMING: applications must be submitted at least 6 weeks prior to the travel date; this cut-off covers travel in October 2026 - March 2027. DEADLINE: this card is for the 14 February 2027 cut-off (other cut-offs each have their own card). APPLY via the Culture Next collaboration page.
The Sony Innovation Fund (now under Sony Ventures Corporation) is Sony's corporate venture capital arm, investing in early-stage (Seed, Series A and Series B) transformational-technology startups across business, entertainment and society, including entertainment, gaming, AI, robotics, fintech, climate and blockchain. Music, entertainment and AI startups fit within its thesis, though it is not a music-only fund. Typical checks are roughly USD 100,000 to USD 5 million, alongside mentorship and access to Sony's network and R&D. It is an equity investment, not a grant. Global, with offices in the US, London/EU, Tokyo, Bangalore and Israel. Startups engage on a rolling basis via the contact and inquiry form. No application fee.