A report published by the European Commission confirms that 60 per cent of UK applications to the Culture programme in 2008 were successful – out of 25 applications submitted, 15 were successful (this excludes applications to the literary translation strand). This is the highest success rate of any participating country submitting more than one project.

The Culture programme is the main fund available from the European Union to support arts and cultural projects. There are several strands within this programme, and in 2008 there were 819 applications overall from which 264 were selected (a success rate of 32.2 per cent). Excluding the Literary Translation strand, there were 628 applications submitted from which 168 were selected (a success rate of 26.9 per cent).

60 per cent is more than twice this overall success rate of 26.9 per cent and in total 68 UK cultural organisations will participate in the various successful projects.