Division I.1 Specific innovative and/or experimental actions

Each year the Community will support events and projects carried out in partnership or in the forms of networks. These projects must involve operators from at least three States participating in the Culture 2000 programme, on the basis of priorities defined after consultation of the Committee referred to in Article 5, without prejudice to offering the associated countries participation in the programme in accordance with the procedures envisaged in Article 7. These actions will cover in principle a period of one year which may be extended to two supplementary years. These vertical actions (concerning one cultural field) or horizontal actions (associating several cultural fields) should be innovative and/or experimental and aim primarily to do the following:

1. (i)

   place the main emphasis on facilitating access to culture and wider cultural participation by the people in Europe, in all their social, regional and cultural diversity, in particular young people and the most underprivileged;

2. (ii)

   encourage the emergence and spread of new forms of expression, within and alongside traditional cultural fields (such as music, the performing arts, the plastic and visual arts, photography, architecture, literature, books, reading, the cultural heritage including the cultural landscape and children's culture);

3. (iii)

   support projects aimed at improving access to books and reading, as well as training professionals working in the field;

4. (iv)

   support projects of cooperation aimed at conserving, sharing, highlighting and safeguarding, at the European level, the common cultural heritage of European significance;

5. (v)

   support the creation of multimedia products, tailored to meet the needs of different publics, and thus make European artistic creation and heritage more visible and more accessible to all;

6. (vi)

   encourage initiatives, discussions and cooperation between cultural and sociocultural operators working in the field of social integration, especially integration of young people;

7. (vii)

   foster an intercultural dialogue and mutual exchange between European and other cultures, in particular by encouraging cooperation on subjects of common interest between cultural institutions and/or other operators in the Member States and those in third countries;

8. (viii)

   promote the dissemination of live cultural events using the new technologies of the information society.

Community support may not exceed 60 % of the budget for a specific action. In most cases this support may not be less than EUR 50 000 or more than EUR 150 000 a year.