Funding Culture for a Changing World

Learning from the Globus experiment

Globus was established to expand Nordic cultural collaboration beyond the Nordic region and connect it with global contexts. Across its six-year duration, the initiative funded 247 collaborative initiatives and evolved from exploratory collaboration grants to support for more long-term partnerships and structural development. At the same time, Globus has functioned as a learning framework for the Fund, testing trust-based, flexible and open-ended funding approaches exploring how cultural collaboration across borders can respond to shared global challenges.

Volume 1: Learning from the Globus Experiment provides a summary and assessment of Globus and examines how the Fund’s ambition to experiment with new forms of funding for cross-border cultural collaboration has played out in practice. The report explores the narratives and practices of global collaboration that emerge when cultural actors are given the agency to define them on their own terms.

The publication shows that Globus was experienced as a unique and important space for experimentation, long-term relationship-building and international collaboration. Rather than producing isolated project outputs, many initiatives used Globus to build networks, develop new methods, strengthen organisational capacity and create conditions for collaboration to continue beyond the funding period.

A central insight is that cross-border cultural collaboration requires time, trust and flexibility. Funding for building relationships, knowledge and infrastructures is a vital part in making sustained collaborations possible.

The publication also highlights how Globus contributed to a more dynamic understanding of Nordic relevance. Instead of positioning the Nordic region as a fixed identity to be promoted internationally, Globus opened up a space to explore how the region’s role, responsibility and relevance can be developed through global dialogue, mutual learning and shared interdependence.

Informing the Fund’s future work

For the Nordic Culture Fund, the publication series marks an important step in translating the learning from Globus into the Fund’s future work. The Fund’s strategy for 2026-2030 underlines the need to rethink funding models and structures, strengthen cooperation and coordination, and develop a more holistic approach to the cultural ecosystem.

The insights from both publications will directly inform the further development of the Fund’s funding practices, partnerships and strategic role in the coming years.

At the same time, the publication series is intended as a contribution to the wider funding community. It invites funders, policymakers, cultural organisations and practitioners to reflect on how funding can become more relevant, responsive and future-oriented, by encouraging shared learning, experimentation and stronger collaboration across funding landscapes.

In times of uncertainty, cross-border cultural collaboration remains essential for imagining and building shared futures. Funding Culture for a Changing World offers insights into how funders can help sustain the conditions for this work to continue.

Want to read more about Globus? You can access more resources through the links below:

Visit the Globus knowledge platform

Globus – created for a changing world 

Globus FORWARD – A new edition of Globus