European Cooperation Projects are the main format of Creative Europe’s Culture strand for transnational cooperation projects between cultural and creative organisations: theatre, dance, music, heritage, architecture, literature, design, fashion (purely audiovisual projects are excluded, as they have their own dedicated calls).
The call is organised into categories based on partnership size and requested budget: small-scale projects require at least 3 organisations from 3 different countries and can receive up to €200,000, with co-funding of up to 80%. This is the most suitable entry point for those without a track record of European projects yet. Medium-scale projects require at least 5 organisations from 5 countries and can reach up to €1,000,000, with co-funding of up to 70%. In years when the large-scale category is also open, the ceiling rises to €2,000,000 for even bigger consortia.
One useful constraint to know before applying: an organisation can coordinate only one proposal per call round, and can appear as partner or coordinator in a maximum of 3 proposals overall; the coordinator must also have existed legally for at least 2 years by the deadline.
The 2026 budget is around €60 million, expected to support roughly 150 projects, with a deadline of 5 May 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time.