ACE creative practice grants: What chance success?

Just over one in five applicants to Arts Council England’s (ACE) seventeenth Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) programme successfully secured funding, according to data released by the funder.

The DYCP programme offers cultural and creative practitioners funding to “take their practice to the next stage” through research, time to create new work, travel, training, developing ideas, networking or mentoring.

The 17th round saw 401 of 1,944 applicants receive funding – a success rate of 21%.

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Information on ACE’s website states the programme is “highly competitive and we support as many individuals as we can”.

ACE has published data on success rates for the first time based on the 17th round of funding “so you can understand the number of applicants we receive in the geographic area you’re applying from and the artform/discipline you practice comes under”.

Applications by area

DYCP decisions are made by a panel of ACE staff in the geographical area the applicant is based in.

More applicants in London received DYCP funding in the latest round than anywhere else in the country. However, applicants based in the capital were also the least likely to receive funding, with a 14% success rate.

Applicants living elsewhere in the country had an above average chance of receiving funding. 

ACE funded 27% of applicants in the Midlands, 26% in the South East, 24% in the North of England and 23% in the South West.

Applications by discipline

Visual arts applicants were more successful than any other discipline. The 144 successful visual arts applicants equates to 36% of all those funded.

Music and theatre applicants were the second and third most commonly-funded, equating to 17% and 16% of successful applicants respectively.

Guidance on ACE’s website says the strength of an application is judged against other applicants, as well as the range and balance of different activities ACE supports, so it may be the case that an application was too similar to others supported.

Unsuccessful applicants may also have missed out because there was not enough information about their creative practice.

Other reasons given for not funding applicants are based around the development opportunity the applicant wants funding for. It may be that there was not enough information about the development opportunity or it wasn’t clear what the applicant wanted to get out of the opportunity, why they wanted to do it now, or what future opportunities would be created from it.

ACE also says unsuccessful applicants may not have clearly shown how their activity meets the aims of the DYCP programme.

The programme's immediate beneficiary should be the applicant. Opportunities for people to engage, become involved with or experience the applicant’s work in the short-term are not prioritised.

Latest round closing soon

Applications to the 18th round of the DYCP programme are currently open and will close on 14 December.

The programme now allows applicants to ask for up to £12,000. It had offered up to £10,000 between 2018 and 2022, before an independent evaluation called for the upper threshold to be increased to align with changes to inflation and the cost of living.

The evaluation also found the overall programme “is effective” in meeting its aims and offered freelance practitioners a “unique opportunity”.

“Those in receipt of DYCP were grateful for the opportunities provided, and have been able to build on the impacts and seen them snowball – sometimes in directions not previously anticipated,” the report stated.