More than half of the applications for the creative contest in Street, Circus, Dance and Theatre of the Programa de Apoio a Projetos 2025 of DGArtes were unsupported, because the funds were exhausted.
© Lusa
11/09/2026
by
Lusa
Dand according to the final decision, released today at the official website of DGArtes, the programming contest of the Project Support Program 2025, to be realized this year, had 275 applications, 189 of which were without support. Of these, the large majority (158) will not receive any money for “the overall amount available has been exhausted” of around EUR 2 million.
In addition, 31 applications were not eligible for support because they were below the 60% minimum score required.
The 2,090.000 euros of tender will serve to support 84 artistic projects.
According to DGArtes, most of the projects are in the area of Theatre (54), followed by Dance (26), circus (three) and Street Arts (one).
In geographical terms, 27 are from the Greater Lisbon region, 26 from the North, 13 from the Center, six in the West and Tagus Valley, six from the Alentejo, three from the Setúbal Peninsula, one from the Algarve, one from the Autonomous Region of the Azores and another from the Autonomous Region of Madeira.
The list of supporters includes projects of Arena Ensemble, actress and director Sara Carinhas, Filandorra – Teatro do Nordeste, choreographer and performer Andresa Soares, Collective Invisible Space, Teatro da Palmilha Dentada and Teatro Experimental de Lagos.
The projects will take place, “mostly in national territory”, until 28 February 2028.
In this competition there were also two applications excluded, because the projects were “inconformity” with aspects defined in the Opening Notice.
DGArtes opened, at the end of January, the competitions of the 2025 Project Support Programme – which includes this one to support creation – with a total allocation of €13.35 million, the same value of 2023 and 2024.
The deadline for submission to this competition – and to all of the Project Support Program 2025 – was until March 12, but it was extended until April 2, taking into account the consequences of the bad weather at the beginning of the year, which affected the artistic sector, especially in the Center region.
The organisations representing the Culture sector have repeatedly warned of the delays in the opening of DGArtes competitions and their underfunding.
When last year the results of the Project Support Program contests were revealed, dozens of structures were again out of funding, although they were considered eligible for support, as had already happened in previous years and is happening this year.
Final results of other competitions have also been published this year.
In the Internationalization, 115 projects were supported, with 41 remaining unsupported for having exhausted the available funding, although they had a final score above 60%.
In the Programming contest, 71 artistic projects were supported, with 110 applications without support due to lack of funding, although they had a final score above 60%.
In Support for Projects in Creation and Programming – Crossing Discipline about one third of the applications was without support for having exhausted the funding that allowed to support 99 artistic projects.
This competition had 283 applications, with 108 applications left unsupported, the large majority (95) of which “the overall amount available has been exhausted”. Thirteen applications were not eligible for support because they remained below 60%, minimum score required.
In the Visual Arts contest, 74 projects with around 1.9 million euros are supported, with 60 remaining without funding for lack of funding.
This competition had 232 applications, with 96 remaining unsupported, most of which (60) because the overall amount available was exhausted.
The remaining 36 applications were not supported because they were below 60% of the minimum score required.