Assessment and decisions
Grant decisions are based on peer review. The Frame Board appoints artists, curators, researchers, or other professionals in the field of contemporary art or museums as peer reviewers. The term of office is two years.
The names of the peer reviewers are public. The peer reviewers for the 2026–2027 term are artists Reija Meriläinen and Rauha Mäkilä, Artist and Curator Antti Tenetz, Curators Ksenia Kaverina and Mirjami Schuppert, and Museum Director Hanna Mamia-Walther.
The assessement meetings are chaired by Juha Huuskonen, Frame’s CEO. If necessary, peer reviewers may request an opinion on an application from an external expert.
Frame peer reviewers are not eligible to receive grants from Frame during their term. Furthermore, no project in which a reviewer is involved is eligible for a grant from Frame.
Tuomas A. Laitinen and Kristina Õllek exhibition ‘Cyanoceans’ at Kai Art Center, Tallinn, in 2024. The exhibition was supported with a Frame grant. Photo: Hedi Jaanisoo
The following criteria are indicative only: not all conditions must be met.
Other viewpoints, such as regional and linguistic factors, are also taken into account. All applicants are treated equally. Equality means that all persons are equal regardless of their gender, age, ethnic or national origin, nationality, language, religion or belief, opinions, disability, state of health, sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic.
1 Quality of artistic work
- Is the applicant a convincing artist in their field?
- Is the applicant (or member of the project) a professional or is the work professional?
2 Quality of the project
- Are the aims of the project well-defined?
- Does the project foster international connections for those involved?
- Does the project enhance the skills and competence of those involved?
3 Scope and impact of the project
- Does the project have international significance?
- Are there partners involved?
- Does the project also create added value for others than those involved?
4 Project budget and organisation
- Are the project and its budget realistic and is the applicant capable of making it happen?
- Is the grant necessary for the project?
- Does the application indicate other sources of funding for the project and are those sources realistic?
- Once the application period has ended, applications are processed at Frame and assessed by two rotating peer reviewers.
- The peer reviewers submit a proposal to the Board of Directors on the grants to be awarded.
- The Board of Directors of the Frame Foundation makes the final decisions on grants within four weeks of the application deadline.
We do not provide reasons for individual grant decisions.
The Coordinator of grants or Director of Frame first checks whether each application meets the general application terms for state subsidies and the Frame’s grant regulations.
Grant decisions are based on the criteria referred to in the assessment section (quality of artistic activities and the quality, impact and feasibility of the project). Attention is also paid to the international significance of the project and the applicant’s ability to make it happen. The budget and other funding are taken into account to assess whether the project’s finances are realistic.
The overall assessment is also influenced by the other applications submitted in the same round. Applications are assessed against one another.
The decision-making is also influenced by the total sum of the state subsidy that the Ministry of Education and Culture gives Frame for the purpose of awarding grants.
Applications submitted to Frame are processed confidentially. The persons who process and assess applications do not disclose any information about the applications or applicants to outsiders.
When sending a grant application to Frame, applicants disclose information about themselves to the foundation, which forms a register file that contains personal data at the foundation.
Frame is committed to following the EU General Data Protection Regulation and to continue to collect only the data we need, only store it for the necessary length of time and report without delay any data security breaches in our registers. Personal data is processed only by the relevant personnel and the processing leaves a trace in our data system.
If you have applied for a grant from the Frame Foundation, you may access your data via the grant application service. If you want to alter or remove information in the grant application system register, please contact veera.lize@frame-finland.fi