The Carulla Foundation of Poblenou in Barcelona opens the call for the Francesc Candel Award, an award that aims to promote cultural projects with social impact that, through arts and culture, promote the participation of migrant people, the creation of community, and the use of Catalan as a language of relationship and shared construction.
The award pays tribute to the writer Francesc Candel, a benchmark in the defense of social cohesion, coexistence, and the construction of a diverse society, and aims to recognize initiatives that share this transformative spirit.
Endowment of 15,000 euros
The Francesc Candel Award will grant an endowment of 15,000 euros to a single selected project from among the three finalists. The endowment must be fully allocated to the development of the awarded project and will be made effective in two payments: a first payment of €10,000 at the time of the award ceremony and a second payment of 5,000 euros once the first year of development has ended, after the evaluation of the project's follow-up.
The jury will be made up of professionals from the cultural, social, and community world. Its composition will be made public on the Carulla Foundation website in September 2026. Applications can be submitted from July 14 to September 18 until 2 p.m. through the registration form available on the website of the Carulla Foundation. The verdict will be announced at the Lluís Carulla Award ceremony, scheduled for November.
An award to promote culture, community, and participation
Projects in community creation, artistic and cultural mediation, cultural management, or hybrid proposals that combine disciplines, methodologies, and areas of action can be submitted to the Francesc Candel Award.
The call is aimed at initiatives linked to any artistic or cultural discipline — such as performing arts, music, visual arts, literature, or community projects — that have a social impact and foster cultural participation.
Projects can be unpublished or in an initial phase of development, provided that the award endowment represents a significant boost for their growth, consolidation, or public projection.
Creators, cultural mediators, managers, private entities and organizations, collectives, platforms, and cultural initiatives can opt for the award. Candidacies can be presented by natural or legal persons with a minimum trajectory of two years or with accreditable experience.
It will be positively valued that the driving teams incorporate migrant people in creation, mediation, management, or leadership roles, as well as the existence of alliances with cultural, social, community, educational, or territorial agents that contribute to the development, implementation, circulation, or sustainability of the project.
Marta Esteve, director of the Carulla Foundation, reflects on the call: “From the Carulla Foundation, we know that culture can be a meeting space where everyone is welcome and has the right to participate.”
About the Carulla Foundation
For more than fifty years, the Carulla Foundation has led, promoted, and connected innovative and transformative cultural projects that incorporate the arts into education, foster participation and cultural rights, and work to make Catalan language and culture spaces for social encounter and cohesion.
In addition to managing the Museu Terra in l'Espluga de Francolí and Editorial Barcino, each year it convenes different awards and grants for cultural and educational promotion and offers workshops and reflection and debate sessions on the power of culture as a motor for social transformation through the Mutare program.
