A Final Blog Post from Simon Brault, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts

More than $7.2 million in grants has been made available for 32 projects aimed at rebuilding flood damaged arts, culture and recreation infrastructure assets in five Local Government Areas impacted by floods in February last year. The Arts and Culture Priority Needs Grants Program, jointly funded by the Commonwealth and NSW Governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, offers funding between $5,000 and $500,000 as part of the broader Community Local Infrastructure Recovery Package (CLIRP).

Arts Council England, Arts Council Wales, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Creative Scotland and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) are joining forces to create XRtists, a £6million, 3-year programme to develop skills and funding opportunities in immersive content production across the UK’s cultural sector.

On Tuesday, 9 May, members of the trade union confederation Glosa-Zasuk and the SVIZ trade union, together with representatives from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, held a third meeting at the Ministry of Culture, where the social partners agreed on the need to extend the existing collective agreement for cultural activities.

In May, the first grant agreements for the implementation of cultural and artistic projects supported by the UCF were signed and submitted to the State Treasury Service of Ukraine for payment.

Responsible finance provider, Social Investment Scotland (SIS) has joined forces with Creative Scotland to support the growth of enterprises in Scotland’s creative and cultural industries. The CultureXcelerator Programme will provide eight ambitious cultural and creative leaders with free one-to-one strategic business support over the next six-eight months from SIS’s selected team of experienced business associates. They include entrepreneurs and experts in finance, the third sector, retail, and strategy and board development.