Arts Access and Participation Fund to pause new applications and develop new criteria

If you have already submitted an application then the team will assess it and make a decision according to our usual timelines. We currently try to let applicants know within four months if an application is successful, and we will do our best to maintain this for all applications we have already received. If your application is unsuccessful, you cannot apply for another 12 months from the date of declination. 

We will close the application portal on 15 December 2023 at 12 noon. We will try to process any applications we receive before this date within our normal timeframes, but please bear in mind that we have more in the system at this point in the year than we normally have. Pausing the Fund also ensures that we can review these applications with the appropriate care and avoid keeping applicants waiting longer than normal. 

If your application is unsuccessful, you cannot apply for another 12 months. 

15 December is the deadline for submitting stage 1 applications and we will respond to all applicants in January, either with a declination or with an invitation to second stage.

We will contact everyone who has already requested an enquiry call to see if they would still like to have an enquiry call in January or defer until we have published our new criteria and application guidance.

Once we pause applications to the Fund on 15 December any in-progress application forms will be automatically deleted from the portal. If you have an application in the system and do not plan to submit it by 15 December, we strongly recommend that you save a copy of your work for your personal records. You can find instructions on how to save a copy of your application here. If you need a hand, please contact arts@phf.org.uk

The new guidance we will publish in April will be an evolution and progression of our current guidance but not a change in direction. Our intention is for the new guidance to give applicants more clarity about the purpose of the Fund and the criteria. We plan to publish a series of blogs from December 2023 until March 2024, which outline the application guidance and why we’re making these changes.