Where UK open calls come from, and where to find them

There is no single place in the UK where every open call is published. Calls come from four kinds of source, each with its own habits. Knowing which is which tells you where to look, how far ahead to plan, and what kind of application each one expects.

1. Public funders

The four national arts councils fund artists directly, as well as funding the organisations that run calls:

• Arts Council England, for artists living in England
• Creative Scotland, for artists living in Scotland
• Arts Council of Wales, for artists living in Wales
• Arts Council of Northern Ireland, for artists living in Northern Ireland

Their grants for individuals often run for long periods or on rolling deadlines, assessed against published criteria, and free to apply for. They ask for more paperwork than an exhibition open (a budget, a plan, an account of who benefits) and they take longer to decide.

Local authorities, city councils and trusts and foundations also run grants, bursaries and commissions, often for artists in a particular place. These are the easiest calls to miss, because they are announced on websites few artists check.

How to use them: read the guidance in full, use their criteria as your headings, and plan months ahead, not weeks.

2. Listing platforms

A handful of UK platforms publish calls from many organisers in one place. Some are free to read, some are part of a paid membership, and most mix open calls with jobs, workshops and paid services.

They are the fastest way to see a lot of calls at once. They are also where you find the most pay-to-enter competitions, because those organisers advertise widely.

How to use them: treat a listing as a pointer, not the call. Always open the organiser's own page, because details change after a listing is posted.

3. Galleries, residencies and institutions

Galleries, project spaces, studios, residency centres and festivals publish their own calls on their own websites, often once a year. In the UK this includes international residency programmes in London, rural residencies in Scotland and the North, studio providers with subsidised places, and festivals and biennials with open strands.

These calls are often the best value: commonly free to enter, often paid, and judged by people who programme the space. They are also the hardest to track, because each one is a single page on a single website, published once and rarely announced loudly.

How to use them: find the ten organisations whose programme you would most like to be part of, and learn when their calls usually open. Most recurring calls open in the same month every year.

4. Prizes and opens

The UK has a long tradition of open exhibitions and prizes, from painting and drawing prizes to printmaking, sculpture, photography and portraiture. Some are among the most respected awards in the country. Many charge an entry fee, and the large ones receive thousands of entries.

Not every famous prize is open. Some, like the Turner Prize, are by nomination only, and no amount of searching will find an application form.

How to use them: check the entry fee, the number of places and, where it is published, last year's number of entries. Our guide to art competition entry fees shows how to judge the odds.

What this means for your week

• Plan around the slow ones. Funding and residencies take months. Put their usual opening months in your calendar now.
• Watch the single-page sources. The calls you are best suited to are often on organisations' own sites, not on platforms.
• Check everything at the source. Deadlines move, fees appear, calls close early.

How the board does this for you

Callboard reads all four kinds of source: the funders, the platforms, and the individual pages of galleries, residencies and prizes. Every call is checked against the organiser's own page before it goes live, and again before it closes. You can see every live UK call, filtered by medium and fee, or set your filters once and get them every Monday.

Set your filters, it's free