In March 2017, the Minister for the Arts announced the transfer of funding from the Catalyst program delivered by the Department of Communications and the Arts to the Australia Council. The Council has subsequently reviewed eligibility requirements and other changes applied to its grants program since 2015.

Following the transfer of funding from the Council to the Catalyst program in 2015, the Council announced that organisations receiving Four Year Funding would not be eligible to apply for Council’s project grants, as they had access to project funding through Catalyst. In light of the funding changes this year the Council will revert to the original criteria which enables all small to medium arts organisations to access Council’s project funding.

From the October 2017 closing date the revised eligibility arrangements for our grants program will be as follows:

• Four Year Funded organisations can make one application for project funding per calendar year, subject to the Catalyst restrictions below
• Organisations in receipt of Catalyst grants:
  • If your Catalyst project funding concludes after May 2018 it will be counted as one of your applications to the Australia Council for 2017.
  • If your Catalyst project funding concludes after September 2018 it will be counted as one of your applications to the Australia Council for 2018.
• Successful applicants can now apply to the subsequent closing date

All other eligibility and application requirements remain the same.

We will review the outcome of these arrangements in the context of the 2018-19 budget and will provide an update in July 2018.