The advice is here. What will happen in Dutch subsidised culture over the next four years?

This is the registration of the presentation:

And here is the full text of the press release. Clarification follows, but we'll read first.

More room for innovation and culture outside the Randstad provinces 04-06-2020 | 14:00 | The Hague

The Culture Council recommends giving more institutions with innovative cultural offerings and institutions from outside the Randstad provinces the chance of a place in the basic cultural infrastructure (BIS). Today, the council is issuing advice on nearly 200 million euros in annual cultural subsidies for the next four years. Almost half of the proposed institutions are new to the BIS. Forty per cent are outside the Randstad. With this, the council believes it has found a balance between continuity, artistic quality, renewal and broadening. The advice was presented to minister Van Engelshoven (OCW).

In addition to institutions and festivals in the fields of opera, dance, theatre, classical music orchestras and visual arts, subsidies for urban, pop music, musical, music ensembles, e-culture, regional museums and design will be available from the beginning of next year. This will reach a wider audience. Twelve regional museums were nominated from the provinces. They receive extra money annually for public activities. There is also room for cultural education, talent development, the development of various genres and reflection and debate.

In early February, the council received applications from 220 cultural institutions across the Netherlands. A total of 107 institutions received a positive recommendation, which still requires additional conditions for 43 of them. They will have until the middle of next year to meet them. Eight institutions with a provisional negative opinion will still get the chance to complete or clarify their plans before 1 November. If these plans are still sufficient in the second instance, the total number of institutions in the BIS will eventually reach 115.

Besides artistic quality, the way in which the institutions practically implement codes on good governance, fair practice and diversity and inclusion were also taken into account. According to the council, with positive exceptions, there is still a world to be won there. Regarding the application of the codes, the council recommends taking stock again in two years' time.

The council made a conscious decision to continue advising despite the corona crisis. This is to give institutions a foothold in uncertain times. In this way, the council wants to ensure that the planned renewal and broadening of the cultural system goes ahead. The council trusts in the resilience and manoeuvrability of the selected institutions and expects them to be able to respond innovatively to the changing situation on the basis of their artistic-content quality.

On Budget Day, the minister will announce her decision on grant allocation for the next four years. She recently announced that she is adopting the council's advice to give the selected institutions until mid-2021 to adjust their plans. This will allow them to take into account different scenarios due to corona. The council will then assess whether this should lead to modified monitoring arrangements. In the coming months, the council will work with the ministry, supporting institutions and urban regions on innovation and transition of the cultural sector.

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Our first comment:

The BIS is dead, long live the Puppets