Austria/ 8.1 Support to artists and other creative workers  

8.1.3 Grants, awards, scholarships

The Austrian arts promotion system includes various measures of direct support for creativity. The main measures are awards, prizes, scholarships, purchase of art works, grants such as contributions to e.g. printing costs of catalogues, running studios (federal studio house in Vienna and various studios abroad), productions, travelling expenses; and commissioning of art works. Various artist-in-residence programmes have been established by the government, the provinces, the municipalities and various institutions in recent years for Austrian and international artists at home and abroad.

Prizes are awarded in the individual branches annually or every two years – partially on a rotation principle. As a rule, a distinction is drawn between support prizes for young artists and prizes in recognition of a mature life work. The support prizes are partly announced and judged by a jury, the recognition prizes are awarded on the basis of a jury recommendation. From 2009, support prizes of EUR 8 000 and recognition prices of EUR 12 000 and EUR 15 000 are given. In 2010, the recognition prizes were renamed as the "Austrian Art Prize" and the support prizes as the "Outstanding Artist Award". The prizes are awarded for current themes of the year in the branches of literature, children's and young people's literature, fine art, architecture, design, fashion, photographic art, video and media art, graphic art, music, film and for art and cultural projects in the social sphere for the support of women's culture and intercultural dialogue.

Special prizes are awarded in the field of literature and journalism, among others the Erich-Fried Prize for Literature and Language, the Ernst-Jandl Prize for Lyrics, the Manes-Sperber Prize for Literature, the Austrian State Prize for Cultural Journalism and Literary Criticism, the State Prize for European Literature and "Austria's Most Beautiful Books". Every two years, in cooperation with the s-Bausparkasse and the Vienna Architectural Centre, the architecture prize "The Best House" is awarded for the best architectural design of a detached house. In the field of photography, the Birgit-Jürgenssen Prize is awarded annually by the Vienna Academy of Fine Art, and in film, the Thomas-Pluch Screenplay Prize is awarded.

The Grand Austrian State Prize of EUR 30 000 is awarded on the proposal of the Austrian Arts Senate without a fixed rotation principle within the fields of architecture, fine art, literature and music for an artistic life work. In the fields of film and artistic photography, the award of the Austrian State Prize is made by a specially selected jury.

The call for tenders from the government can be found on the homepage of the bmu:kk. The federal provinces also award various arts prizes in support of Austrian artists, for example the Salzburg Art Prize, the Salzburg Music Prize, the Salzburg People's Sculpture Prize, among others.

Since 2010/11 the International Culture Department of the Ministry for European and International Affairs has had a special support programme, "The New Austrian Sound of Music" (NASOM), which supports young musicians in appearances abroad. In 2012/13, 25 young musicians from classical music, jazz, new folk music / world music and pop were supported.

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