Arts Council December Newsletter

December was a very busy month for the Arts Council. The Council announced more than 400 funding decisions for next year, an investment totalling almost e60 million. These are the Council's major grants; the remaining, smaller grants will be announced throughout 2009.

With significantly less resources than in previous years, the Council has been mindful of its role as both a leader and a partner in arts provision, adopting a strategic approach. In its decisions it took as its priority maintaining the fabric of the arts -- the key infrastructure - across more than a dozen artforms. In all of this, the Council was guided by its long-term policy, Partnership for the Arts, and aims to steer the development of each sector through the current downturn.

Also in the newsletter, we publish the closing dates for grants and awards in 2009. It is important to note that there are a number of changes in the ways to which Arts Council Awards will be offered in 2009. Not all awards will be open to applicants in all artforms or arts practices, and for some awards only one deadline has been scheduled for 2009.

Following on from the New Media, New Audience? seminar in November, we are pleased to inform you that presentations and audio recordings from the seminar are now available online. We are delighted to share this thought-provoking and timely discussion with all our subscribers.

Elsewhere in the newsletter, we announce the decisions for the second round of bursaries in 2008, and inform you about the upcoming deadline for the Kevin Kieran Award.

Rounding off the newsletter are our regular articles on news from the arts community and international opportunities from the Cultural Contact Point.