What Does a Jury Actually Assess in an Artist Open Call?

You submit an application.

It contains your portfolio, CV, proposal, budget and motivation.

Then it disappears into a selection process.

What happens next can feel mysterious.

Does the jury mainly look at the quality of your work?

Your CV?

The originality of the proposal?

Whether the project seems realistic?

Whether you are a good fit for the programme?

The answer depends on the opportunity.

Different grants, residencies, commissions and open calls use different assessment criteria and different selection processes.

And not every process is even run by something called a jury. It may involve peer assessors, external experts, advisors, staff or a selection panel.

The useful question is therefore not:

What do juries like?

It is:

What are the assessors actually being asked to judge?

1. Eligibility and selection are different stages

Before thinking about jury preferences, separate two questions:

Are you allowed to apply?

and:

How strong is your application against the assessment criteria?

They are not the same.

In the 2025-2026 Culture Moves Europe Individual Mobility call, applications are first checked for eligibility. Eligible applications then proceed to evaluation by two independent evaluators. ^↗

Mondriaan Fund similarly checks whether an Artist Project application and its attachments are complete before the application is submitted to the advisory committee for assessment. ^{↗ ↗}

An application can therefore satisfy every eligibility requirement and still not be selected.

Eligibility gets you into the assessment process.

It does not guarantee a positive assessment.

2. The published criteria are the assessors' assignment

Artists sometimes try to imagine what an individual juror personally wants to see.

That can distract from more useful information that may already be published.

When an opportunity publishes assessment criteria, those criteria describe what the assessors have been asked to evaluate.

Creative Australia explains that peer assessors review and score applications against the published assessment criteria for the relevant grant or opportunity. ^{↗ ↗}

Its current Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups programme uses three main criteria:

quality,

viability,

and impact.

The Mondriaan Fund's Artist Project scheme separately considers the quality and development of the oeuvre, cultural entrepreneurship and the quality of the proposed plan. ^↗

A strong application therefore needs to answer the criteria of the programme in front of you.

Not a generic idea of what makes a good application.

3. Artistic quality may be only one part of the assessment

Artistic quality is important in many selection processes.

It is not necessarily the only criterion.

A programme may also assess:

• feasibility;
• relevance;
• preparation;
• impact;
• professional development;
• audience;
• sustainability;
• or fit with a particular place, archive or institution.

For the 2026 Munch-Goethe Artist Residency, the published funding criteria included the quality of the proposed project, developing practice or research relationships in Oslo or Norway, the expressed and perceived need for the award and willingness to engage with the programme's communities. ^↗

The 2026 FILE NOT FOUND residency call used another combination: quality and clarity of the project proposal, feasibility and timeline, logistical considerations and relevance to the chosen archive. ^{↗ ↗}

The 2025-2026 Culture Moves Europe Individual Mobility call assesses project relevance, mobility relevance, preparation, outcome and sustainability. ^↗

So an artist can present strong work while still submitting a weak application for a particular programme.

The work and the proposal may be assessed together, but they are not always being assessed for the same thing.

4. Different criteria can carry different weight

Do not assume every criterion matters equally.

Sometimes the weighting is explicit.

In the 2025-2026 Culture Moves Europe Individual Mobility call, the 20 available evaluation points are distributed across five criteria: ^↗

• project relevance: 4 points;
• mobility relevance: 5 points;
• preparation: 5 points;
• outcome: 4 points;
• sustainability: 2 points.

Mondriaan Fund's Artist Project guidance explicitly states that the criterion concerning the quality of the plan is weighted more heavily within that particular scheme. ^↗

That matters when preparing an application.

If a programme tells you one criterion carries more weight, treat that as information about the decision process.

Do not assume every section of the application contributes equally to the final assessment.

5. Your portfolio and your proposal can answer different questions

A portfolio usually gives an assessor evidence about work you have already made.

A proposal describes something that has not happened yet.

Those materials can therefore serve different functions.

In the Mondriaan Fund Artist Project assessment, visual documentation, an explanation of the artist's work and cultural entrepreneurship, the CV and the plan together inform the assessment. ^↗

The criteria separately consider the quality and development of the existing oeuvre and the quality of the proposed plan.

An assessment process may therefore be asking:

Does the previous work demonstrate a convincing practice?

and separately:

Is this new proposal convincing?

Strong previous work does not automatically make a future plan convincing.

And a compelling idea does not automatically provide evidence that the applicant can realise it.

Your application needs to let each piece of evidence do its job.

6. “Fit” is often more specific than whether the jury likes your work

Programme fit can sound vague.

Often it is more concrete than that.

A residency may be designed around a location, archive, research theme, community or method.

The 2026 FILE NOT FOUND call explicitly assessed relevance to the archive selected by the applicant. ^{↗ ↗}

The 2026 Munch-Goethe call asked applicants to propose work connected to the life or themes of Edvard Munch and included developing practice or research relationships in Oslo or Norway among its funding criteria. ^↗

Culture Moves Europe asks whether physical mobility is necessary to achieve the desired project outcome. ^↗

This means fit is not necessarily:

Does this organisation like artists like me?

It may be:

Does this particular proposal make sense within the purpose and structure of this programme?

That is a much more useful question.

7. Feasibility is not the opposite of ambition

Artists can sometimes treat practical detail as separate from artistic quality.

Selection criteria often do not.

The 2026 FILE NOT FOUND call explicitly assessed feasibility and timeline alongside the quality and clarity of the project proposal. ^{↗ ↗}

Creative Australia's current Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups programme assesses viability as one of its three principal criteria. Under that criterion, peers may consider matters such as capacity to deliver the activity, the skills of the people involved and whether planning and resources are realistic and achievable. ^{↗ ↗}

The Mondriaan Fund asks whether an Artist Project plan is realistic in terms of execution as part of its assessment of plan quality. ^↗

A proposal can therefore be ambitious and still need to demonstrate that it can actually happen.

Depending on the call, evidence of feasibility might come from:

• a realistic timeline;
• an appropriate budget;
• confirmed partners;
• relevant experience;
• access to equipment or locations;
• or a clearly defined working method.

The exact evidence depends on the opportunity.

8. The assessment may consider professional context

Not every assessment treats an application as if it exists in isolation.

Mondriaan Fund states that the background and context of an applicant's professional practice can be taken into account in the Artist Project assessment, including education, cultural context, the nature and duration of the professional practice and the type of work being made. ^↗

That does not mean the assessment criteria disappear.

It means some evidence may be understood in relation to the artist's professional context.

For example, the development of an oeuvre may be considered in relation to the phase of the artist's practice.

Do not invent contextual allowances yourself.

Use the wording the programme publishes.

9. A score is not always the final decision

Some selection systems use numerical scoring.

That does not necessarily mean the highest raw score automatically receives support.

Creative Australia's peer-assessment process is a clear example. ^{↗ ↗}

Peer assessors first review and score applications against the published criteria.

They then discuss the initial group ranking together.

Assessors may adjust their scores after that discussion.

Creative Australia staff then apply the available budget to the peers' final rankings. ^{↗ ↗}

Culture Moves Europe uses another model. ^↗

For the 2025-2026 Individual Mobility call, two independent evaluators assess eligible applications.

A jury then makes the final selection.

That jury considers the evaluator scores and comments, but also the available budget and additional considerations such as geographical and gender balance, sectors, a mix of emerging and established practitioners and other inclusion aspects.

So check whether the process involves:

• scores;
• rankings;
• panel discussion;
• a separate jury;
• interviews;
• shortlists;
• budget limits;
• or additional balancing considerations.

These are different decision systems.

10. A positive assessment may still not mean funding

Competition and available resources matter.

A programme can receive more positively assessed applications than it can support.

Creative Australia applies the available programme budget to the final rankings produced through its peer-assessment process. ^{↗ ↗}

Mondriaan Fund's current Artist Basic guidance similarly explains that limited budget can mean that not every positively assessed application receives a grant. In that situation, positively assessed applications can be compared and ranked in order of priority. ^{↗ ↗}

That distinction matters.

A rejection does not always mean:

the jury thought the work was bad.

It may instead mean:

the application was positively assessed but did not rank high enough within the available budget,

or:

another part of the selection process affected the final decision.

Only say more than that if the programme gives you more information.

11. Panel discussion can change an initial assessment

Assessment is not always a collection of isolated individual opinions.

Some systems deliberately include discussion between assessors.

Creative Australia explains that peers initially score applications and then discuss the group ranking together. ^{↗ ↗}

Scores may be adjusted after that discussion.

An application may therefore move through several forms of judgement:

individual reading,

scoring,

comparison,

and panel discussion.

Other programmes may use independent assessment without the same panel structure.

The practical lesson is not to try to predict a particular juror.

It is to make the application clear enough to be understood across the different stages of assessment.

12. Conflicts of interest can affect who assesses an application

Professional art fields are interconnected.

Assessors may know applicants or organisations involved in an application.

Serious assessment systems therefore need ways to manage conflicts of interest.

Creative Australia states that assessors must disclose connections with applicants and applications before assessment meetings. ^{↗ ↗}

Depending on the nature of the conflict, an assessor may be prevented from scoring an application, being present while it is discussed or taking part in the assessment.

Mondriaan Fund similarly states that an advisor cannot participate in the relevant advisory meeting when they have submitted an application themselves, when their organisation has applied, or when they are privately or professionally involved in another application. ^{↗ ↗}

You should therefore not assume that knowing a jury member means that person will assess your application.

And you should not design an application around personal assumptions about individual assessors.

The published process is more useful than speculation.

13. Not every selection process publishes the same level of detail

Some opportunities publish:

• specific criteria;
• point allocations;
• panel composition;
• assessment stages;
• interview dates;
• or information about ranking.

Others publish only a short description.

For the 2026 Munch-Goethe residency, the Goethe-Institut published the funding criteria and stated that representatives of the Edvard Munch Studio Foundation and Goethe-Institut would form the jury. ^↗

The 2026 FILE NOT FOUND guidelines went further. ^{↗ ↗}

They published the selection criteria, jury composition and a timeline containing jury meetings, first responses, interviews and final selection.

Other opportunities may simply say that a panel will select the successful artists.

When information is missing, do not invent a hidden process.

Mark it as:

not specified.

That is information too.

Before you submit, reconstruct the assessment

A useful way to review an application is to temporarily stop thinking like the applicant.

Read the published material as if you were the assessor.

Ask:

Eligibility

Will my application reach assessment at all?

Criteria

What exactly have the assessors been instructed to judge?

Weighting

Are some criteria more important than others?

Evidence

Which part of my application provides evidence for each criterion?

Artistic practice

What are the assessors evaluating in my previous work?

Proposal

What are they evaluating in the future project?

Fit

Why does this proposal make sense for this specific opportunity?

Feasibility

What demonstrates that the plan can realistically be carried out?

Process

Is there scoring, ranking, panel discussion, a jury, shortlisting or an interview?

Competition

Can a positively assessed application still lose out because places or funding are limited?

If the official call does not answer one of those questions, do not assume that it does.

A selection panel is assessing an application, not your entire value as an artist

An application is a limited package of evidence submitted for one particular decision.

The assessors are not being asked to produce a universal verdict on your practice.

They are deciding how the evidence in that application performs against the criteria and decision process of that particular programme.

That distinction matters.

A rejection from one open call does not establish that the same work or proposal would be weak in another context.

And a successful application does not create a universal formula that you can reuse unchanged everywhere.

For Artist Opportunity Assistant, the useful information is therefore not simply:

there is a jury.

It is:

what the assessors are evaluating, what evidence they receive, how the decision is structured and what remains unspecified.

Editorial note

Selection processes vary substantially between grants, residencies, commissions and open calls. The examples in this guide describe specific published assessment systems and should not be treated as a universal model of jury decision-making. Programme criteria and procedures can also change between application cycles. Always use the current published criteria and selection information for the opportunity you are considering.