The situation the pandemic revealed in Iceland led to an increase in the number of monthly artists' salaries from 1,600 to 2,850 months. Furthermore, new categories were added to the fund, including a screenwriters division, a special category for emerging artists, and a new category for artists aged 67 and older, replacing the previous honorary salaries. The proliferation of domestic project funds has coincided with the professionalisation of Iceland's cultural policy and the government's heightened focus on culture and creative industries (Kaaber 2022), mainly driven by a growing awareness of the economic significance of these sectors.
In a 2022 restructuring, cultural affairs were moved from the Ministry of Education and Culture and merged with the business sector, forming the new Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Business, which also handles tourism industry matters. The reorganisation aims to streamline the administration of cultural affairs. Previously, certain areas, such as reimbursements for production costs, fell under different ministries. As outlined in a parliamentary resolution (2023), the changes are justified by the transformations brought about by globalisation and technological advancements, which call for more agile and adaptable approaches. The rationale highlights the overlap between the tourism and cultural sectors, recognising that the creative industries impact the country’s image as a tourist destination while benefiting from increased tourism and demand for Icelandic art and culture. It states that policymaking and public support need to consider these factors and strengthen conditions to foster new opportunities and advance these industries, ultimately benefiting society (Art. no. 169/2023).
These emphases are not out of step with Iceland's first explicit cultural policy (2013), which emphasises artistic autonomy and independent cultural initiatives not only by maintaining an arm's-length principle to distance political influence from the allocation of funds but also by promoting professionalism. The policy also highlights the significance of Iceland's burgeoning tourism industry and its impact on fostering cultural production opportunities. The year 2013 was a pivotal turning point for Icelandic cultural policy. Along with establishing an explicit cultural policy through a parliamentary resolution, the central cultural funds were placed under the supervision of the Icelandic Centre for Research (Rannís), and regional development funds were also initiated to coordinate development across the country.
Over the past decade, the regional system that has emerged is characterised by a multi-level governance approach involving regional representatives. It adopts a place-based perspective that acknowledges different territories' specific needs and circumstances. Additionally, it follows the partnership principle, aiming to include all relevant stakeholders in the design and implementation of the programmes (Act no 69/2015). The significant role of culture in the emerging regional framework is noteworthy, given the challenges faced by cultural policies closely linked to nation-states, stemming from the globalised creative industries and international trade regulations that seek to restrict national distinctions. Cultural policy has become more specialised as diverse content policies have converged, leading to challenges in collaboration, policy formulation, and programme execution (Cunningham 2015). Bakhshi and Cunningham (2016) have emphasised how the emergence of the creative industries makes it impossible for policymakers to focus solely on the arts and how data collection is the foundation for analysing the diverse societal impacts of culture and formulating effective policies for the modern era.
This study examines the interplay between Icelandic domestic cultural funds and the two Nordic funds: the Nordic Culture Fund (NCF) and Nordic Culture Point (NCP). The focus is on the Icelandic cultural project funds, beginning with a review of the funding system in Iceland. This includes examining the conditions set by the funds for applicants and their organisational structure. These are competitive funds that provide grants covering a portion of project costs, focusing on supporting self-employed individuals not bound to public institutions. However, some funds also support institutional activities. The study encompasses the main national funds, and the regional cultural grants initiated in 2013.
The overarching question of this study is how Nordic and Icelandic support systems for free cultural life are related to each other. To answer this question, we have explored the connections and interplay between applications submitted to Nordic and Icelandic cultural funding bodies, offering insights into the dynamics of this relationship. The interplay is explored through budgetary items and the names of actors or projects applying for funding. Owing to Iceland's smaller population, it is feasible to undertake this more in-depth analysis of the system within Iceland compared to the other Nordic countries, as tracking the names of individuals and projects through funding applications is more manageable in Iceland's smaller context. In accordance with research ethical principles, no names of individuals, organisations or projects are disclosed in the chapter or referred to in a traceable manner.
A subquestion of this study revolves around the regional level of cultural funding in Iceland, examining how projects within and outside the capital area seek financing from domestic and Nordic programmes. A preliminary analysis of the data revealed that excluding the regional level would limit the study's scope, as many applicants from rural areas were present in the Nordic data but not in the leading national funds. Analysing the regional level of cultural support is particularly interesting given the recent changes in public funding for CCIs, which are part of the broader policy and planning shifts in 2013.
5.2 Methodology
This study focuses on looking for interplay between the NCP and NCF, on the one hand, and Icelandic cultural funds on the other, where interplay refers to any overlap between the two funding systems. The research initially aimed at only collecting data for funding programmes for cultural projects that are open to applications from individual artists and art organisations and generally do not cover running costs. Following this, the focus was on gathering data from the cultural project funds managed by Rannís and from project funds managed by centres overseeing their respective fields. A preliminary analysis of the data from the two Nordic funds (see
chapter 2), however, revealed that a significant portion of the applications appeared to originate from areas outside the capital region, which prompted the researchers to collect additional data from the regional development funds managed by the regional associations, which can cover both project funding and running costs. This was done to investigate whether there was greater interaction between Icelandic and Nordic funds than the initial cross-referencing had suggested and ended up supporting the special focus of this chapter regarding applications from and grants to regional cultural projects.
The analysis was then divided into three sections. First, we examined the Icelandic funding system and shed light on the various funding programmes available for cultural projects. In the second section, we studied Icelandic applicants in the Nordic data, exploring art forms and budgets. In this section, we delve into analysing the interplay between the NCF and NCP, on the one hand, and Nordic domestic funding systems on the other, looking at applications where Iceland was the principal applicant. Here, budget data was examined to look for potential interplay with Nordic national, regional and municipal funding programmes. No distinction was made between Icelandic domestic funds and domestic funds from other Nordic countries. This section is comparable to other national chapters in this anthology and outlines the interplay between domestic and Nordic funding systems, as it appears through application strategies for co-funding.
In the third section, we took a deeper look at applications to the Nordic funds, where Iceland was the principal applicant, and looked for interplay with Icelandic funding programmes through correspondence names of applicants, co-applicants or projects. This approach cross-referenced data from the NCF and NCP with Icelandic data, and was possible in large part due to the population size of Iceland. Due to variations in the name spelling of applicants in the Nordic funds, some applications required multiple reviews with different Icelandic and international spellings in the domestic funds. Additionally, some common Icelandic names necessitated confirmation that the individual was the same in both funding schemes, and this was done through internet searches. Since collaborator information was not recorded in the Nordic dataset, it is possible that another collaborator applied independently in Iceland for the same project, and this could not be verified. In the case of The Design Fund, which included a collaborator variable, an overlap was identified as both applications referred to the same project but were submitted by different applicant names to the two funds. A total of 42 applications in the Nordic data were found to have correspondence in the Icelandic datasets through applicant or project names. In those instances, Icelandic data were used to enrich the Nordic data with regions and thus to analyse the geographical locations of applicants or projects applying for funding from the two Nordic funds.
All currency calculations are based on the average exchange rate of 2022 between Icelandic Krona (ISK), Danish Kroner (DKK) and Euros (€) found through the
European Central Bank.
5.2.1 Limitations
Aside from limitations already addressed in
Chapter 1, concerning the limited time frame the data regards, this study faced some challenges explicitly related to the Icelandic context. For one, the Icelandic project fund data are not standardised across all funds, resulting in varying scope and detail in the data collection. This makes it challenging to compare all variables across the different funds. Data managed by Rannís has the most comprehensive scope, including details on the geographical location of applicants, which is not available for all other funds. The regional development funds are overseen by seven different regional associations outside the capital area, and the data received from them also lacked consistency in format. Some funds provided data that included not only cultural projects but also those in the cultural domain supported under business development and innovation initiatives. Additionally, some funds included information on start-up and operating grants, while others only provided details on the project applicants, such as their names and ID numbers. This heterogeneity in the data made it difficult to conclusively determine whether the same projects were applied to both the Nordic and Icelandic funds.
The Film Fund declined to provide its complete 2022 data, citing competitive considerations, but did share information about the eight film-related projects that received grants that year. Most of these were film festivals, but the specialised Nordisk film and TV fund that supports Nordic filmmaking was not included in this study, and it is unlikely that other film-related projects would be found in the Nordic funds. The data format of the Visual Arts Fund prevented its inclusion in the comparative analysis. No connection was found between the applicants to the Icelandic Literature Fund and the Nordic funds, suggesting they serve distinct applicant pools.
Data from the Nordic funds also had some limitations which impacted the study. The main issue concerned the lack of applicant and project names in data covering over half the Icelandic applications to NCP. This made analysing overlap through names impossible for those applications. The available data additionally does not provide clear information on which projects are part of each application, making it challenging to conclusively determine whether the same projects were applied for in both the Nordic and Icelandic funds. For this reason, the approach taken in this research is to consider there to be interplay between the Nordic and Icelandic funds if the name of the institution, individual, or project appears in both datasets, and the data do not explicitly rule out the possibility that it is the same project. Additionally, it is difficult to ascertain whether a Nordic fund application was made after an Icelandic application was either awarded or rejected, as this study only examined data from 2022. This provides a limited perspective on the interaction between the Nordic and Icelandic funding sources, given Iceland's small population size and the single-year data used in this research.
5.3 Icelandic Cultural Funding System
Over the past 25 years, cultural administration in Iceland has been systematically professionalised. This has been achieved through legislation for each cultural domain, which has established centralised policy-making in each sector, expert councils, and specialised funds. These funds have diverse histories, with most being created after the turn of the century. They all fall under the purview of the Ministry of Culture and Business and are financed through parliamentary budget appropriations. The majority of these funds are project-based and competitive, requiring some level of self-financing. While the funds are overseen by expert councils specific to their respective fields, their administration is not uniform, leading to variations in the research data collected. Their allocation committees typically consist of one representative appointed by the Minister of Culture and two representatives nominated by professional associations or organisations in the relevant field, although this is not uniform for all funds. The application requirements for all cultural funds are either outlined in regulations or published on the websites of the overseeing organisations. While there is some variability in how clearly the funding terms are communicated and how the evaluation committees make their award decisions, the information is generally accessible across the various funding programmes.
5.3.1 National Funds
In 2013, the same year that Iceland's first explicit cultural policy was established, the government entered into an agreement with Rannís to administer the country's cultural and arts funding programmes. This was done to strengthen the professional framework around the management of the main cultural and artistic funds. The Education and Culture Division of Rannís was created with a focus on Nordic and European cooperation, and today it oversees the administration of several of the nation's key competitive funding programmes in the cultural and artistic domains. It also operates information platforms to assist with study and career opportunities abroad. The funds that Rannís manages include the Children's Culture Fund, the Library Fund, the Performing Arts Fund, and the Artists’ Salary Fund.
Additionally, the division provides support and information for the Creative Europe and EEA Grants competitive funds and coordinates the Nordplus programme on behalf of the Nordic and Baltic countries. However, other significant cultural funds, such as the Design Fund, the Film Fund, the Visual Arts Fund, and the Literature Fund, fall entirely under the jurisdiction and administration of the expert councils and promotion centres specific to their respective fields. The newly established Iceland Music Centre oversees the Music Fund, which combined previously established music-related funds, including the Music Fund and the Music Recording Fund (previously managed by Rannís). An overview of the leading domestic funding programmes for culture can be found in Table 5.2.