Creative Incubator Fund

Supporting the development of new artistic work and the growth of the creative ecology in Basingstoke and Deane.

The Basingstoke Creative Incubator is a new initiative developed by Basingstoke’s Cultural Compact and is designed to stimulate the development of original artistic work by local artists and support the growth of the local cultural ecology in Basingstoke.

It aims to attract national artists and arts organisations from across the UK to collaborate with local artists and arts organisations in the borough and together make and present new work.

The Creative Incubator will support artists and creatives with:

collaboration with local artists and arts organisations to jointly develop work
access to creative workspace if available and depending on specific requirements
opportunities to collaborate with local communities and other non-cultural organisations
chances for public presentation through both the council’s events and festival programme and by partnering with local cultural stakeholders and venues.

This incubator will support our broader placemaking objectives by investing in the borough’s creative ecology and connecting local talent and organisations with national artists in line with the aims set out in our Cultural Framework and aspirations of the Basingstoke Cultural Compact. Find out more information about our Cultural Framework

To support the incubator, a new fund has been established to enable collaboration between local and national artists. The Fund opens for application on Friday 10 October 2025. Deadline for application is Friday 5 December 2025. All projects must be delivered by December 2026.

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Fund purpose

The Fund must be used to address all of the following three objectives:

support the research, development, and creation of new artistic work that can be presented at festivals, events or within cultural organisations in Basingstoke and Deane during 2026.
create new artistic work working in collaboration with local artists and/or local organisations.
develop long-term relationships between visiting artists/organisations and the local Basingstoke and Deane creative ecology.

The Fund could be used as:

partnership funding to leverage further grants (such as from Arts Council England, trusts and foundations)

All funded projects must deliver a benefit to the Basingstoke creative ecology by meeting the following criteria:

Develop and create new work with local artists, arts organisations or creative industry business.
Present the work in Basingstoke through festivals, events, or partner venues opportunities in 2026 (this could include non-cultural venues such as shopping centres, village halls, community facilities or schools).

Favourable applications could:

Co-create work with local communities, supporting either health and wellbeing aims or our aspiration to reduce and prevent inequality through its anti-poverty work.
Offer skills development opportunities working with local education settings, emerging artists or by offering work placement opportunities.
Create new arts projects using digital technologies that could benefit the local creative industries.
Support the placemaking ambitions of Basingstoke and Deane by developing work that showcases the borough as a centre for creativity and could tour nationally or internationally and be promoted as made and developed locally.

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Available funding

Up to £90,000 of funding is available. The fund will be distributed across three strands, with the aim of supporting 16 individual projects. The maximum amount of funding available for a single project is £20,000. The amount of funding requested should be proportionate to the scale of the project.

Strand	Description	Amount available per award	Expected number of awards
Organisations	For the development of new work fulfilling the fund purpose above.	Up to £20,000	2
Individual artists	For the development of new work fulfilling the fund purpose above.	Up to £10,000	4
Emerging artists	Emerging artists based in the borough looking to develop and create new work for presentation at festivals, events, or partner venues.	Up to £1,000	10

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Creative workspace

Depending on availability and specific requirements, creative workspace could be available in a range of locations including meanwhile-use sites (such as empty shopping units, rural farms, office buildings, industrial spaces), where the council has brokered a relationship with other businesses and organisations. Cost of space hire should be factored into your application and budget.

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Eligibility

Where possible, applications should be led by local artists or organisations. Where this is not possible, applications should clearly state how the project clearly benefits a local artist or artists, and/or a cultural organisation or organisations.
This fund is open to individual artists, collectives, and cultural organisations across all artistic disciplines.
Applicants may be based anywhere in the UK but must commit to working in Basingstoke and with local artists (with the exception of the emerging artist strand where artists must be resident of Basingstoke and Deane).
All proposals must demonstrate a clear benefit to the Basingstoke creative ecology.

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Application process

Before submitting an application, email culture@basingstoke.gov.uk to arrange a pre-application conversation. This provides the opportunity to find out more about your project, check eligibility, discuss space requirements, and answer any questions you may have about the scheme.

Following the pre-application conversation, you will be sent an application form to complete in full detailing your project, its objectives and benefits and funding request and to be returned no later than Friday 5 December 2025.

After the deadline, applications will be checked for eligibility and scored. The scoring questions together with weighting are clearly identified in the application form. See below assessment criteria.

Following eligibility checking and scorings, the applications will then be reviewed by a panel comprising Cultural Compact members. It is expected that applicants will be informed of the outcome of their application by Tuesday 23 December 2025.

Make sure you complete all sections of the application form. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.

Deadline for application to the Fund is Friday 5 December.

Assessment criteria

Assessment criteria	Score
Deficient – no response to the question or a response that is significantly deficient	0
Limited – limited information provided, or a response that is inadequate or only partially addresses the question	1
Acceptable – an acceptable response submitted in terms of the level of detail, accuracy and relevance	2
Good – responses submitted provide a good level of detail and relevance with some areas of weakness	3
Comprehensive – a comprehensive response submitted in terms of detail and relevance	4
Outstanding – a comprehensive response to a significantly better degree, delivering innovation and considerable and meaningful outcomes.	5

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Basingstoke and Deane Creative Incubator Fund

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