Awards Categories and Bursaries
The Awards have 13 categories, including ten main categories and three financial awards/bursaries.
Eligible Period for Awards Applications
Specifically, our awards seek nominations highlighting exceptional collaborations between a business or philanthropic partner and an arts partner (organisation, collective, or individual artist) that took place between January 2025 and April 2026.
Read each category description carefully before responding. Click into the individual categories below for more details and the 2025 winners.
This award recognises outstanding large-scale partnerships between businesses and arts organisations or artists, with a value of €25,000 or more (cash or in-kind).
Winning collaborations will demonstrate ambition, strategic alignment, and meaningful impact for both partners, showing how significant investment can enable artistic excellence and deliver shared value.
Winner 2025
- Xestra Asset Management & Dublin City Council Arts Office: Artane Artist Studios
Highly Commended 2025
- Ace Autobody & Royal Irish Academy of Music: RIAM Spotlight Awards
- Dublin Port Company & Temple Bar Gallery + Studios: Longest Way Round, Shortest Way Home
- Tanqueray 0.0% & Dublin International Film Festival
This award recognises exceptional partnerships between businesses and arts organisations/artists where the sponsorship is less than €25k in value, cash or in-kind.
Winning collaborations will demonstrate creativity, strong alignment between partners, and meaningful impact, showing how partnerships of all scales can deliver significant artistic and business value.
Winner 2025
- Clinch Wealth Management & ANU Productions, Landmark Productions, MoLI: The Dead
Highly Commended 2025
- Aeolus Engine Services & Sing Ireland
- Samaritans & Smashing Times: Acting for the Future
- Kildare Credit Union & Blueway Art Studio: A Little Book of Brigid
This award recognises enduring and impactful partnerships that have been in place for three years or more and have demonstrated growth and evolution over time.
Winning collaborations will show how the partnership has deepened, expanded its reach, introduced new strands of activity, or developed innovative approaches to engagement and participation.
Winner 2025
- Henry J Lyons & Temple Bar Gallery + Studios: Dublin Art Book Fair
Highly Commended 2025
- University of Galway & Druid
- Clem Jacob Hire & Spraoi International Street Arts Festival
- HLB Ireland & Graphic Studio Dublin: Echoes of Home
This award recognises partnerships that work collaboratively with community groups to address specific social issues through creative projects and programmes.
Winning initiatives will demonstrate meaningful engagement, community voice, and clear social impact, using creativity as a tool to strengthen connection, wellbeing, and local resilience. Projects should align with the social impact strategies of both partners.
Winner 2025
- British Irish Chamber of Commerce & Fishamble: Taigh Ty Teach
Highly Commended 2025
- WALK & Smashing Times
- Rethink Ireland in partnership with TikTok & Dublin International Film Festival: Irish Film Pioneers
This award celebrates an individual, foundation, trust, or corporate philanthropic organisation whose generosity and leadership have made a meaningful difference to the arts in Ireland.
Nominations must demonstrate how philanthropic support provided within the eligible period has enabled artistic ambition, strengthened organisations, or delivered measurable cultural or social impact. Submissions should reference a specific project, programme, or defined suite of arts funding active during that period.
Nominations may be submitted by the arts beneficiary, the philanthropic entity, or a third party with their knowledge and support.
Winner 2025
- Tomar Trust
Highly Commended 2025
- Bank of Ireland for Begin Together Arts Fund
- Ecclesiastical Insurance Ireland for Movement for Good
This award recognises creative partnerships that explore and highlight environmental and climate issues through artistic programming and sustainable practice.
Winning initiatives may raise awareness, open public dialogue, or encourage positive change around issues such as climate action, biodiversity, or the circular economy. Projects may also demonstrate leadership in environmentally responsible production and delivery.
This award honours the power of arts and culture in shaping a greener future.
Winner 2025
- Environmental Protection Agency, the National Library of Ireland & Paula T Nolan: Photographer in Residence
Highly Commended 2025
- MaREI & Croí Glan: CHANGE
- Native Events & IMMA: Earth Rising
- Irish Rail & Mild, Laura McMahon: Tern the Tide
This award celebrates partnerships that engage employees in the arts and embed creativity within company culture.
Winning initiatives may include artist residencies, commissions, workshops, performances, creative engagement programmes, or structured in-kind and pro bono collaborations involving staff. Successful entries will demonstrate how collaboration with the arts has strengthened employee engagement, fostered connection, and contributed to a more creative and inclusive organisational culture.
Winner 2025
- Saint John of God & Dr Sinead McCann, AlanJames Burns: Our Place
Highly Commended 2025
- Specsavers Limerick & University Concert Hall: Panto For All
- The Ireland Funds & Irish Chamber Orchestra
- Clancourt & The Ark: Ark Access
This award is presented annually to a business or organisation that has demonstrated excellence in commissioning an artist in any artform.
Winning entries will evidence a transparent and well-managed commissioning process, clear communication, fair and appropriate remuneration, and meaningful engagement with the artist throughout. Successful collaborations will show genuine partnership from concept to completion, with a strong commitment to artistic integrity and the creation of a high-quality and engaging work.
Created in honour of Jim McNaughton, a tireless champion of the arts, the perpetual award is crafted by sculptor Jason Ellis.
Winner 2025
- Drogheda Port Company & Emily McCormack: Brig Manley
Highly Commended 2025
- Sherkin North Shore & Open Ear Festival: Island Residency Programme
- Peugeot, Ruth Medjber & Photo Museum Ireland: Her, Allure
- Irish Life & The Meditative Creative: Our City, Our Future.
This award celebrates partnerships that engage employees in the arts and embed creativity within company culture.
Winning initiatives may include artist residencies, commissions, workshops, performances, creative engagement programmes, or structured in-kind and pro bono collaborations involving staff. Successful entries will demonstrate how collaboration with the arts has strengthened employee engagement, fostered connection, and contributed to a more creative and inclusive organisational culture.
Winner 2025
- Spencer Lennox & Irish National Opera: INO Future Leaders Network
Highly Commended 2025
- Cork & Kerry County Councils & Sample-Studios: Make or Break
- Connected Hubs & Contemporary Irish Art Society
Selected at the discretion of the judging panel from submissions across the main award categories, this award cannot be applied for directly.
It recognises a partnership, organisation, or initiative whose work in the year under review merits special distinction. The award may honour exceptional collaboration, innovation, leadership, or impact that has made a significant contribution to arts and business engagement.
Winner 2025
- Cork International Film Festival with Murphy’s, Tomar Trust, Future Planet, Irish Examiner & The Arc Cinema Cork
Highly Commended 2025
- Cork Midsummer with Tomar Trust, Ecclesiastical Insurance & University College Cork
- RIAM & Ace Autobody, Clinch Wealth Management & Ecclesiastical Insurance
Now in its 18th year, our longest-running bursary awards €10,000 to an emerging artist in any artform seeking to expand and develop their practice, whether through a specific project or broader professional development. The bursary supports artistic ambition, experimentation, and growth at a pivotal stage in an artist’s career.
In 2025, it was awarded to Manar Al Shouha, a Syrian-born painter based in Dublin. She plans to develop her first solo exhibition in Ireland, exploring new mediums such as printmaking, and expanding her international presence.
Recent winners have included actress and writer Lauren Larkin, actor and writer Thommas Kane Byrne, Afghani photographer Barialai Khoshhal, flautist Miriam Kaczor, artist Catherine Creaney, actor and playwright Aisling O’Mara, and more.
This bursary recognises artists whose work delivers on the promise of technology and human ingenuity. The €10,000 award supports artists who are exploring digital tools, platforms, or processes to expand creative practice and engage audiences in new ways.
The 2025 winner was Amanda Ralph, for her work in the digital space. She is working on setting up a digital ‘field station’ on a derelict farm to analyse wildlife using sensors, cameras, and audio data before biodiversity restoration begins. The bursary supports her return to full-time practice, skill development, and the creation of new work for an upcoming exhibition at Luan Gallery.
Previous winners include 1iing Heaney, AlanJames Burns and Nadia J. Armstrong.
This €5,000 cash prize recognises an arts organisation whose project distinguishes itself through artistic quality, ambition, and impact.
Chosen from entries across the main award categories, the award highlights outstanding work and provides additional support to further its development. This Award cannot be applied for directly.
In 2025, it was awarded to Fishamble, The New Play Company for ‘Who I Am and How I Am’. A project, celebrating ethnically diverse young voices in the D1 area over four months of workshops exploring themes of identity, racial equality, and community harmony
Previous winners in recent years include Sing Ireland, axis Ballymun, Dublin Dance Festival and That’s Life for Bounce Club Night, and Waterford Walls.
