Dutch Council for Culture makes Recommendations for the New Cultural Ecosystem

This offers more room for artistic innovation and stimulates cooperation, it also reduces the administrative burden and strengthens the position of institutions as a collaboration partner for co-financing and new initiatives. In addition to this adjustment, the council emphasizes the importance of better coordination between the cultural playing field and government. It advocates that this be laid down in the Specific Cultural Policy Act.

With these two recommendations, the council provides input in a letter to Minister Eppo Bruins of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) on cultural subsidies from 2029.

In line with the previously issued advice 'Access to Culture', the council continues to believe that investments are necessary for a future-proof, broad and accessible cultural system. At the same time, important steps towards a new system can be taken without an additional budget, for which there is broad support in the field.

A new subsidy period of eight years strengthens the position of institutions in the cultural ecosystem. This gives them more flexibility to develop long-term trajectories and partnerships, including in the field of talent development and cultural education. In return for the above-mentioned advantages, institutions in the BIS fulfil their responsibility in the system more explicitly, with attention to innovation and their social role. Funds also gain more room to shape their policy in a more flexible and differentiated way.

In order to properly support this development, agreements are needed between governments on a joint long-term vision of cultural policy, with room for regional differences and administrative autonomy.

By better coordinating the cultural policy of the national government, provinces and municipalities and anchoring it in law, more coherence and less fragmentation will be created. The council recommends that this be laid down in the Specific Cultural Policy Act, together with four objectives that it previously formulated in 'Access to Culture': access for the public, support for creators, diversity of the supply and the role of culture in society.

The recommendations were drawn up in consultation with, among others, IPO, VNG, Kunsten '92 and the Performing Arts Coalition. They build on the advice 'Access to Culture' and form the first steps towards a cultural system that better matches the diversity and dynamics of the cultural field.