UCF has announced competitive programs for 2020

On November 1,  a press conference was held at the National News Agency "UKRINFORM"to announce the launch of competitive programs that will support projects in the field of culture in 2020.

Deputy Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Iryna Podolyak focused on the positive development of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation as an institution that supports all sectors of culture on the principles of openness and transparency.

The Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation Maryna Poroshenko analyzed the results of the institution's work for 2019, noting the need for information tours around different regions of Ukraine to increase the number of project applications and projects from the regions.

Executive Director of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation Yuliia Fediv told about the program approach in the Foundation activities and the series of changes that the institution developed and implemented in the competitive selection of projects in 2020, both in terms of program structure and some procedures. In particular, the application is fully automated, the application package will be accepted in electronic format only. The methodology of peer review has been changed. From now on, UKF experts will be allocated to programs and then to sectors. Five experts will evaluate each application.

In response to numerous demands of applicants, UCF has lifted restrictions on the number of submitted projects. Starting from November 1, 2019, one applicant can submit one project for each UCF programs. At the same time, projects submitted from one applicant to different competitive programs must have different names, goals, objectives, results and different composition of project teams. If several projects from one applicant win, the Foundation will be able to support only two projects that scored higher than the other projects submitted by this applicant.

The number of UCF competition programs has been updated and increased. The programs developed jointly with international partners have been added to those in force in 2019: "Culture. Tourism. Regions"‒ with USAID "Competitive Economy Program Ukraine" (CEU), SME.DO (Small and Medium enterprises development Office under the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture); "Culture for Change" in partnership with the support programs "MEET UP! German-Ukrainian Youth Meetings" of the "Memory, Responsibility and Future" Foundation (EVZ). Also in 2020, UCF will introduce a new program "Cultural Capitals of Ukraine", aimed to promote and develop culture in the framework of decentralization reform, taking into account the capacity of the territorial community.