Highlights of the Canada Council’s successful New and Early Career Artists pilot project
Overview
- The Canada Council for the Arts successfully concluded its pilot project for New and Early Career Artists (NECA) in 2024.
- The initiative that started in 2019 supported emerging artists and simplified access to grants in the Explore and Create program and was highly successful in doing so.
- Many emerging artists benefited from funding opportunities, helping them advance their careers as professional artists.
- The pilot provided access to those at the start of their careers, including those new to Canada and supported individuals belonging to one or more of the Council’s Designated Priority Groups.
- As Canada Council transitions to new profiles with the launch of our updated portal, the NECA profile pilot will come to an end after 6 years of significant impact.
- The learnings from this pilot greatly informed the rethinking of the new profiles. Eligibility will become more open and will fit the needs of most artists, including new and early career artists.
Funding Results | Overview
Figures throughout are based on the Explore and Create program for Individuals in Research and Creation and Concept to Realization components only.
Eligible Applications
| Fiscal year | NECA | Total Explore and Create | % NECA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 558 | 5,204 | 11% |
| 2020 | 1,111 | 6,906 | 16% |
| 2021 | 1,758 | 8,816 | 20% |
| 2022 | 2,082 | 8,665 | 24% |
| 2023 | 2,705 | 11,540 | 23% |
| 2024 | 1,550 | 6,381 | 24% |
| Total | 9,774 | 47,512 | 21% |
Successful Applications
| Fiscal year | NECA | Total Explore and Create | % NECA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 210 | 1,648 | 13% |
| 2020 | 443 | 2,751 | 16% |
| 2021 | 863 | 3,961 | 22% |
| 2022 | 818 | 3,049 | 27% |
| 2023 | 470 | 1,762 | 27% |
| 2024 | 392 | 1,443 | 27% |
| Total | 3,196 | 14,614 | 22% |
- By 2024, almost a quarter of eligible applications submitted to the Explore and Create program were from NECA.
- The upward trend in successful NECA applications peaked at 27%, representing over a quarter of all successful applications.
Amount Awarded
| Fiscal year | NECA | Total Explore and Create | % NECA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $4,345,579 | $39,027,177 | 11% |
| 2020 | $9,343,721 | $64,741,497 | 14% |
| 2021 | $21,752,556 | $106,672,589 | 20% |
| 2022 | $21,919,864 | $86,587,842 | 25% |
| 2023 | $13,271,640 | $53,078,860 | 25% |
| 2024 | $10,234,693 | $41,540,225 | 25% |
| Total | $80,868,053 | $391,648,190 | 21% |
Success Rate
| Fiscal year | NECA | Total Explore and Create |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 37% | 32% |
| 2020 | 40% | 40% |
| 2021 | 49% | 45% |
| 2022 | 39% | 35% |
| 2023 | 17% | 15% |
| 2024 | 25% | 23% |
| Total | 33% | 31% |
- Overall, slightly over a fifth of Explore and Create funding went towards NECA.
- By 2022, a quarter of grants were being awarded to NECA.
- Since 2019, the share of funding to NECA has increased by 14%.
- The success rates for NECA are one-third of the eligible applications, comparable to 31% of the Explore and Create Program.
Designated Priority Groups: Comparison of successful applications between NECA Profiles and Individuals in the Explore and Create Program (Components Research and Creation and Concept to Realization excluding composite grants)
New and Early Career Artists pilot program (NECA)
| Fiscal year | Successful Applications | Successful Applications - Designated Priority Groups | Successful Applications to Designated Priority Groups as a % of Successful Applications |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 210 | 117 | 56% |
| 2020 | 443 | 226 | 51% |
| 2021 | 863 | 474 | 55% |
| 2022 | 818 | 465 | 57% |
| 2023 | 470 | 307 | 65% |
| 2024 | 392 | 227 | 58% |
| Total | 3,196 | 1,816 | 57% |
Explore and Create (Project Applications for Individuals)
| Fiscal year | Successful Applications | Successful Applications - Designated Priority Groups | Successful Applications to Designated Priority Groups as a % of Successful Applications |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,648 | 789 | 48% |
| 2020 | 2,751 | 1,365 | 50% |
| 2021 | 3,961 | 1,962 | 50% |
| 2022 | 3,049 | 1,667 | 55% |
| 2023 | 1,762 | 1,111 | 63% |
| 2024 | 1,446 | 877 | 61% |
| Total | 14,617 | 7,771 | 53% |
- The NECA pilot project success rate year over year (57% overall) for designated priority group applicants was slightly higher compared to individuals receiving project funding in the Explore and Create program (53% overall).
- Over half of the successful NECA profiles were from designated priority group applicants belonging to one or more of the Council’s designated priority groups.
Designated Priority Group: The Council supports Indigenous, racialized (formerly referred to as culturally diverse), Deaf and disability, and official language minority communities through targeted funding and initiatives. NECA applicants may self-identify as belonging to one or more groups.
Success Stories
The New and Early Career Artists pilot project helped these early career artists fuel their careers as professional artists:
Kunsang Kyirong
Kunsang Kyirong is a filmmaker and artist. Her films integrate documentary methods with fiction, often exploring the impacts of immigration on culture and human relationships. She aims to create stories that feel universal in their themes but from a perspective or cultural view that is unfamiliar to the viewer. Her previous short film, ‘Dhulpa’ shot inside a laundry facility in Canada, was funded by the Canada Council and received a jury special mention at the Festival du nouveau cinema.
Kunsang has now completed her first feature film, 100 Sunset which also received Canada Council funding. The film was shot in Parkdale, Toronto and follows a young, introverted thief who spies on her Tibetan community and meets an unexpected confidant.
Kunsang Kyirong obtained her NECA profile in 2020 and submitted 6 successful applications in a row to Explore and Create between 2020 and 2022. She is currently working on an exhibition with the Museum of Anthropology, UBC.
Dora Prieto
Dora Prieto is a Mexican Canadian poet, editor, and translator. Prieto’s interdisciplinary poetry work has been exhibited at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, the Lakes International Comics Arts Festival, Ignite! Festival, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.
Funded by the Canada Council, her poetry chapbook “a world built to forget” centers around the silent spaces between the generations of her family, as shaped by the Colombian armed conflict throughout the 20th century. Self-described as “existentialist and nihilist, gritty and urban, with an irreverent and iconoclastic tone”, a selection of nine poems from the project was shortlisted for the prestigious Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.
Dora Prieto obtained her NECA profile in 2021 and since then submitted eight applications to Explore and Create, and 5 of them were successful. She now has a validated Literary Writer profile.
Questions?
For specific questions related to the Explore and Create results, please contact the Director of the program at regine.cadet@canadacouncil.ca
As this is the first time the Council has released competition results in this concerted way, we welcome your feedback on how the results are presented, their clarity, and their usefulness, so we can improve future releases.
Please contact the Research, Measurement and Data Analytics Section at research@canadacouncil.ca.