• Market Studies
• Mobility
• Working conditions of artists

Cultural Mobility Funding Guide - At-risk and Displaced Artists and Culture Professionals

This Cultural Mobility Funding Guide emerges as a direct outcome of On the Move’s international research-action project examining the situation of at-risk and displaced artists and culture professionals. Over the course of a year, this project has systematically identified policies and best practices across EU Member States, the United Kingdom, and the United States that foster the professional development of displaced artists. This guide specifically provides a comprehensive overview of funding bodies and programmes dedicated to supporting at-risk and displaced artists and cultural professionals, as well as the organisations designing initiatives tailored to this community.

On the Move commissioned researcher Manojna Yeluri to map grants and support schemes in order to help organisations and arts workers to engage with international colleagues and finance their international travel. This research took place from November to December 2025. This Cultural Mobility Funding Guide should also provide inspiration for those responsible for public policies and mobility funds at local, regional, national and European level, as well as private donors and mobility stakeholders at large. Reinforcing awareness of the remaining obstacles that stand in the way of equal access to international opportunities, it can suggest areas that should be financed more fairly and efficiently in order to ensure more sustainable support for cross-border cultural collaboration.

This guide lists national, regional and international resources, both public and private. Only regular opportunities accessible online are listed, where it is possible to learn more about the offerings of the grants. This guide lists opportunities, resources and information that is largely relevant for artists and cultural practitioners who are in need of emergency and urgent assistance. While there may be debate about what constitutes an emergency, there is a universally accepted acknowledgement that emergency situations are marked by the urgent need for assistance in the face of imminent threats to one’s physical, emotional and digital well-being.

The source of these threats may include conflicts, war, unfair persecution, censorship, sudden economic precarity (owing to socio-cultural and socio-political reasons), natural disasters and other similar acts of grave and arbitrary hostility and/or danger. Left to face such situations, at-risk artists and cultural practitioners may turn to resources that can offer them rapid-relief monetary grants for relocation, enhancement of safety measures, legal support, medical relief, psycho-social support, or livelihood opportunities due to loss from natural disasters or war, to name a few. 3 In light of these different aims, the entries in this guide present the forms of assistance that are covered by each scheme. In addition to emergency relief, this guide also highlights various short-term relocation assistance programmes that are available internationally and nationally. The guide also includes additional information on platforms and resources that engage with issues of transnational cultural mobility, artistic freedom, and artist and cultural rights advocacy.