Creative Learning Partnerships (CLP) provides grants to Victorian schools to engage an individual creative professional, a creative collective or a creative organisation for a school residency project.

It provides students, teachers and creative professionals with diverse and challenging learning experiences that support deep learning across the curriculum from Foundation to Year 10 plus VCE Vocational Major and Victorian Pathways Certificate.

You can apply if you’re a Victorian primary or secondary school, including government and non-government schools, and schools for students with special needs.

To increase access and equity, schools that received Creative Learning Partnerships funding between 2024 and 2026 are not eligible to apply for the Creative Learning Partnerships 2027 program.

The Creative Learning Partnerships program offers schools:

• Grants of $10,000 to engage a Victorian (or cross-border) creative professional to work with the school on a creative project for approximately 15-20 days

OR

• Grants of $35,000 to engage a Victorian (or cross-border) creative collective or organisation to work with the school on a creative project for at least 20 days

Your project can cover any artform or creative discipline including, but not limited to, digital games development, fashion, filmmaking, performing arts, literature, visual arts, media arts, music and design.

Your school will receive funding to engage a creative professional or organisation to collaborate with you to design a tailored, curriculum aligned project that suits the needs of your school, your students, teachers and school community.

No. Schools must be the applicant.

However, once a school and a creative individual, collective or organisation have decided to apply together, you can work on the draft application and budget tools along with your partner school.

The school Project Coordinator must register on the DJSIR Grant Portal to open an account in the school’s name and then copy and paste the draft into the online form.

You can apply to run your Creative Learning Partnership to a timeline that best suits your school and your creative partner. The only requirements are that projects do not start until Term 1 2027, and that they run for approximately 15-20 days for projects with an individual creative partner, and at least 20 days for projects with a creative collective or organisation.

Schools that received Creative Learning Partnership funding in the last three rounds (2026, 2025 or 2024) are not eligible to re-apply for this round. This is to open up these opportunities to more Victorian schools.  Schools may re-apply after the expiry of the three-year term.

If you’re not sure, a list of ineligible schools for the Creative Learning Partnership 2026 program can be found on this webpage.

Yes. A creative professional/artist who has participated in a Creative Learning Partnerships project in the past three years can be a partner with a different school this round.

They must be based in Victoria or in a cross-border community.

No.  A creative professional, collective or organisation cannot be involved in more than one Creative Learning Partnership project in a funding round.

Cross-border means the border areas of Albury-Wodonga, Yarrawonga-Mulwala, Echuca-Moama, and Mildura-Wentworth.

Teachers can draft and submit the application, however, they must first obtain and confirm support from the Principal (mandatory) and School Council (if possible).

A Declaration of Support signed by the school Principal (mandatory), the President of the school council or equivalent (if possible), the school Project Coordinator (mandatory), and the creative partner (mandatory) must be submitted with your application.

We recommend that schools identify a reasonable number of students to be involved in the project. Each school and project is different, and schools and creative partners are encouraged to work together to determine the best number of students for their context and project.

The primary purpose of the Creative Learning Partnership grant is to engage your creative partner/s, so your budget should prioritise creative professional or organisation/s fees.

We suggest that you ask your chosen partner/s what their rates are and negotiate a rate that everyone is comfortable with.

Creative professionals bring specialised skills and knowledge into your school and must be appropriately remunerated for their work.

The school should also provide financial and in-kind support for project delivery costs within school resources and/or external fundraising, where possible.

The program may consider supporting the entire cost of a project only for those schools considered significantly disadvantaged as per the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA).

Schools and creatives are encouraged to find their own partners before applying.

We recommend that you watch the Creative Learning Partnerships information and application guidance video and read the program guidelines before contacting us to provide your details.

One of the key guiding principles of the Creative State 20258 strategy is First Peoples First. We are committed to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 11 guiding principles of Aboriginal Self-Determination as identified in the Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Framework 2018-23.

Applicants must follow correct protocols when working with First Peoples artists, activity and/or communities. Please refer to Creative Australia’s (previously Australia Council) Protocols For Using First Nations Cultural And Intellectual Property In The Arts. In particular, the project checklist (pages 168 to 172) can be used as a resource to guide considerations when engaging with First Peoples content, creatives and cultural heritage.

For the protection of First Peoples arts practice from misappropriation, moral and copyright infringement, appropriate documentation must be submitted if you propose to work with First Peoples stories/cultural material that is not your own, such as letters of confirmation from the First Peoples you are working with and protocols you will put in place to ensure cultural safety.

Applications from non-First Peoples applicants that contain ICIP or collaborations may also be reviewed by a First Peoples Cultural Protocol Review panel. Activity that does not follow or demonstrate correct protocols will not be supported.

Please use the below as a guide of the types of supporting documentation you need to provide:

• the budget amount allocated for First Peoples collaboration or engagement (in the budget section of this application)
• First Peoples community engagement plans
• Letters of confirmation from First Peoples collaborators / communities (2 pages)
• Cultural safety protocol strategies. Please refer to the Victorian Department of Heath’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Safety Framework

ICIP may refer to artistic work, stories, languages, tangible and intangible cultural property, and contemporary and historical records. Please refer to the Arts Law ICIP webpage for more information.

Note: Before lodging your application, you are required to have read Creative Australia’s Protocols For Using First Nations Cultural And Intellectual Property In The Arts, in particular the checklist in pages 168 to 172 and ensure that your proposed activities and interactions meet these protocol requirements.

Creative Learning Partnerships provides grants to support a school to engage a creative professional, collective or organisation to develop a creative learning project together. Your project budget must prioritise the fees for the creative partner/s, however a smaller proportion of grant funding can also cover costs directly related to the project, i.e. materials.

There’s high a level of demand for Creative Learning Partnerships funding, so we recommend that you plan for contingencies if your application is unsuccessful (e.g., other funding sources). Please don’t make commitments based on the assumption that you’ll receive funding until you’ve received written confirmation of your final funding outcome.

Funding recommendations are subject to approval by the Minister for Creative Industries. Note it will take approximately 10 weeks from the application closing date before the assessment process is complete and applications receive their notification.

Feedback on your application is provided at Creative Victoria’s discretion and may not be available when you receive notification of your funding outcome.

The school representative who registered the application will be notified by email of the outcome approximately 10 weeks after the published closing date.  The school representative must liaise with their creative partner/s to inform of any updates and the outcome of your application.

If your funding application is successful, you’ll receive a funding agreement outlining the conditions for funding, payment information and reporting requirements.

See Information for current recipients

If your application is successful you will be asked to submit a tax invoice for the amount of the grant. You will also be sent a Funding Agreement to read and sign. Once the invoice has been received and the Funding Agreement signed the payment will be processed.

Program funding payments are conditional on you meeting your obligations under your Funding Agreement with the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions (DJSIR), including fulfilling any payment milestone outcomes or deliverables set out in the Funding Agreement.

No. Listed funding amounts for this program exclude GST. If your application is successful and you are registered for GST, Creative Victoria will pay the grant amount plus GST.

Please note, school email security settings may redirect correspondence to email spam folders. Applicants are advised to check spam folders regularly for confirmation of receipt, and notification about the outcome of your application.