Bursaries are available for CENL members to share skills and knowledge. They are up to the value of €1,000 per application.
The bursary can relate to any aspect of skills and knowledge exchange such as:
There is no fixed deadline to apply for the Skills and Knowledge Exchange Bursary, applications are accepted year-round.
The Erland Kolding Nielsen Grant celebrates the enormous contribution Erland Kolding Nielsen has made to the development of European libraries throughout his long and distinguished career.
The Erland Kolding Nielsen Grant is a grant of up to €5,000, which is awarded to CENL member library projects that promote international collaboration and strengthen bonds between CENL libraries.
The Erland Kolding Nielsen Grant was introduced in 2017 for an initial period of five years. It celebrates the enormous contribution that Erland Kolding Nielsen made to the development of European libraries throughout his long and distinguished career as Director General of the Royal Library of Denmark (1986–2017).
As the grant promotes and facilitates networking and cooperation between CENL member libraries, it is a valuable grant for CENL. The Executive Committee has therefore extended it twice, most recently until 2029.
The grant is based on proposals from either individual CENL member libraries or from a group of member libraries. The grant can focus on any aspect of international library collaboration including:
The 2026 Call for Applications will be opened early next year, so interested applicants should mark the date on their calendars.
If you or your institution would like to donate to the CENL grant in honour of Erland, we would be very pleased to hear from you. Please contact cenl@dnb.de and we will send you details of how to donate.
Created in 2020, the Covid-19 Support Fund was a temporary fund to respond and provide funding to help CENL members respond to immediate challenges connected to the Covid-19 crisis, and offer support to adapt and reimagine ways of working together for the longer-term future. Since the pandemic recedes and there is less and less need to react spontaneously to acute situations, the CENL Executive Committee agreed to terminate the fund by the end of 2022.
In 2020, CENL supported IFLA’s dedication to inclusion, and to actively work against racial discrimination of all kinds. As national libraries, we need to ensure that our collections, events and exhibitions are genuinely inclusive and representative of and for all communities.
The ‘Hidden Stories Fund’ was a temporary fund to support CENL members who have new projects to collect, preserve, research and highlight the stories from, by and related to underrepresented communities in their national collections. This fund‘s aim was to encourage and support working with underrepresented communities to ensure that their stories are preserved for future generations.