How to get involved
How you can get involved
Libraries and communities
Are you a library working with your community in Europe? Or are you a community that wants to work with your local library? Do you want to catalyse change in your local area – together?
Every library in Europe* is eligible to take part in the Europe Challenge, from public libraries, to mobile, rural, school, university, and prison libraries, municipal and national libraries.
Keep an eye on our website for more information about how you can get involved. You can join our mailing list to keep up to date with all the latest news and opportunities [link] – including information about our 2023 Europe Challenge.
Municipalities and foundations
Are you a municipality, local or regional institution or foundation, and do you support citizen-led change in your local area? Join us in growing and scaling the Europe Challenge programme locally and across Europe.
Please drop us a line at theeuropechallenge@culturalfoundation.eu to discuss opportunities for collaboration.
* Europe is regarded in cultural terms and in and beyond the official European Union member states. We understand Europe as a genuinely cultural endeavour, a community of people, their ideas, visions and social dynamics.
Overall eligibility criteria
- Applications must be submitted in English;
- Applicants must be at least 18 years old;
- A library and a community* need to apply together – both need to be represented in the application form.
- Applicants should be located in one of the European countries **
- We do not accept proposals submitted by political parties or organisations affiliated to political parties (unions, campaign groups, etc.). Our work is strictly non-partisan.
* In this call, we refer to “communities” as groups of individuals who are linked either locally or online, sharing common values, interests, beliefs, resources or any other common factors that affect their identity and their degree of cohesiveness. These could be for example informal community groups, associations, collectives, specific communities of practice.
* * Europe is regarded in cultural terms and in and beyond the official European Union member states. We understand Europe as a genuinely cultural endeavour, a community of people, their ideas, visions and social dynamics. A true civil society that relates to each other across political borders, shares in mutual solidarity and assumes its global responsibilities around the world.
Selection process and timeline
The selection is undertaken by a committee consisting of the European Cultural Foundation, representatives of partnering foundation(s) and representatives of public libraries who participated in the previous editions of the Europe Challenge.
The selection results were communicated on 24 June 2022, 17:00 CET to both successful and unsuccessful applicants.
All selected challenge teams – consisting of one representative of a community and one member of the library staff – attended an online Europe Challenge 2022 kick-off meeting in the first week of July 2022.
“The Europe Challenge with all the resources – such as the funding, the new tools, the exchange with the colleagues of the ECF and with the international network of libraries – was an amazing opportunity to learn and to become better in initialising own voice-projects.”
Berlin Central Library, Germany
