On this page

1. Existence of a national strategy

2. Scope and contents

3. Responsible authority for the implementation of the strategy

4. Revisions/updates

Existence of a national strategy

Denmark has two strategies on creativity and culture for young people.

In 2014, the Ministry of Culture issued a comprehensive national strategy for children’s and youth’s encounter with arts and culture: Strategy for Young People’s Encounter with Art and Culture (Strategi for unges møde med kunst og kultur).

In 2018, the Ministry of Culture issued a national strategy for young artistic talents: the Ministry of Culture’s Talent Programme for the Art Forms (Kulturministeriets talentindsats for kunstarterne). The strategy is managed by the Danish municipalities to ensure geographical dissemination.

Scope and contents

The strategy for Young People's Encounter with Art and Culture 

This is based on the idea that children and young people must experience art and culture from their early years and continuously throughout their childhood and youth in order to develop to their full potential. The strategy is in three parts: a strategy for small children, for school-age children, and for young people. These strategies combined contain approximately 30 initiatives, each of which supports the overall objective of ‘experiencing art and culture’.

Among other things, the strategy for young people stressed the importance of supporting self-organised activities in order to ensure a sense of ownership of projects and activities as well as a sense of responsibility. This strengthens young people’s identity as active, committed citizens with respect for communities and society as a whole.

The strategy for schoolchildren also supports the reform of the public school sector in 2013, which, among other things, requires that schools cooperate with local associations and cultural life. 

Political objectives: In order to provide a framework for all young people to encounter art and culture and have the opportunity to create their own cultural activities, the strategy focuses on four areas where they can make a difference:

• Focus is directed at young people as a separate group and at improving knowledge and communication.
• The framework for young people’s self-organisation must be strengthened and made visible.
• Young people must, to a great extent, be involved in the development of cultural offers via co-creations between themselves and established cultural players.
• All young people must be exposed to art and culture, including young people with special needs and disabilities, and young people who do not of their own accord seek out and make use of existing cultural offers must be given the opportunity to get involved in art and culture.

Target group: All children and young people, including those who do not visit museums or take music lessons, should have the opportunity to engage in art and culture.

The Ministry of Culture’s talent programme for the art forms

Young Danish talent within the field of culture and art must be further improved in a global competition for admission to artistic education programmes and for creating a career. Based on a mapping of talent initiatives in Denmark, the ministry has decided to focus on two key areas:

The first area is strengthening local talent environments in the municipalities.

• Talent municipalities: All municipalities have the opportunity to be talent municipalities as long as the municipality develops a strategy and a measure for talent development within more than one artistic field.
• A pool of funding is established to which municipalities can apply for funding to develop talent environments.
• Talent development measures must be developed in partnership with other relevant local, regional, or national actors.
• A pool of funding is established to support talent development initiatives in relation to, for instance, education institutions or NGOs.

The second area is supporting the career development of young artistic talents via a special programme under the Danish Arts Foundation. 

• The programme distributes DKK 6 million annually. Applicants must have completed an artistic education programme or have established themselves on the art scene.
• Career programme to ease the transition period from being a talent to being a professional artist. The duration of the programme is two years.

Responsible authority for the implementation of the strategy

Strategy for Young People's Encounter with Art and Culture

The Ministry of Culture has the overall responsibility for the implementation of the strategy.

There is no monitoring/assessment/evaluation of the strategy.

The Ministry of Culture’s talent programme for the art forms

The Ministry of Culture has the overall responsibility.

The Agency for Culture and Palaces administers the pools of funding for local and other talent initiatives. DKK 6 million is allocated for the local talent pool, while DKK 2.5 million is allocated to other talent initiatives.

The Danish Arts Foundation administers the pool of funding for young talents. DKK 4 million is allocated to the initiative.

There is no monitoring/assessment/evaluation of the strategy.

Revisions/updates

Strategy for Young People's Encounter with Art and Culture:

All the initiatives contained in the three parts of the strategy have been implemented.

The Ministry of Culture’s talent programme for the art forms

There is no revision of the strategy.