In 2021, as part of the new three-year Creative Economy programme, Counterculture worked with the British Council to design and deliver a 3-year Policy Grants Scheme supporting work that would integrate research, policy, and practice, with a focus on practical interventions for the development of the creative sector and cultural leadership in Wider Europe.
The overall objective of the programme is to increase the awareness, ability, and commitment of policymakers across Wider Europe to support the creative economy in their countries, and to develop new partnerships with a view to longer-term collaboration with the UK.
The programme includes a policy strand, which aims to foster policy dialogue amongst stakeholders in the UK and Wider Europe, and to gather evidence and knowledge about creative economy policies at local, national and international level, with a view to facilitate evidence-based policymaking.
The countries taking part in the Policy Grants Scheme were: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
You can find out more about the scheme here. You can also read Ukraine’s Cultural Recovery Plan Blueprint here, which reflects some of the recommendations made in the Policy Grants Scheme.