Yesterday, Creative Scotland announced the 251 organisations who have been successful in securing Multi-Year Funding. Thanks to an uplift in Grant-in-Aid funding from the Scottish Government – unlocking the largest budget Creative Scotland has ever had – more than £200m will be invested over the next three years. This marks the most extensive portfolio of cultural organisations to receive sustained support. In addition, a further 13 organisations will benefit from a £3.2m Development Fund, with the aim of bringing them into the Multi-Year Funding portfolio in 2026-27.
We’re incredibly grateful and pleased to announce that Creative Scotland has awarded the SMIA a total of £904,750 for the period of April 2025 – March 2028. This represents a significant uplift on the support we currently receive as a Creative Scotland Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO), enhancing our ability to deliver crucial sector development work that’s designed to strengthen, empower and unite Scotland’s music industry while increasing its economic, social and cultural value.
Since our inception in 2008, we’ve been driven by a firm belief in the power of music to enrich our lives, shape our culture and create opportunities. Being part of Creative Scotland’s Regular Funding Network since 2018 has enabled us to scale up our work, support more people and better respond to the challenges and opportunities facing our sector. Our initiatives – ranging from workshops and research projects, to the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award and the SMIA Summit – have supported artists and industry professionals across a wide range of sub-sectors, genres and disciplines, at varying career levels and right across the country. Our membership has grown exponentially during this time, and we’ve continued to build an increasingly engaged and diverse community. Across the period, we’ve learned more about the sector’s needs, wants and challenges, and we’ve become better at devising and delivering strategies to effectively support its development.
It’s been an incredibly challenging few years for Scotland’s music industry, and we know there’s a steep road back with a lot of work to do. With the SMIA now representing over 5,000 members across Scotland, this renewed investment allows us to build on our progress, work collaboratively with our community and significantly enhance our capacity to support the sector.
Our 2025-28 plan is founded on the core belief that an authentic Scottish strategy is required to deliver for a distinctive and diverse Scottish music industry, and for that strategy to be effective, it has to be both co-designed and co-delivered with those it’s aiming to support. Over the next three years, we’ll focus on strategic partnerships and macro-level interventions that address systemic challenges and drive lasting change. We recognise that the success of this work is contingent on us building a strong team and a resilient business, ensuring that we’re adequately equipped to support and develop a strong sector, as well as promote best practice to drive both growth and cultural change. Our plan focuses not just on the economic growth of Scotland’s music industry, but on cultural enrichment, social empowerment and contributing to broader strategic goals for Scotland; allowing us to play our part in building a better, fairer, more ethical, more sustainable, more diverse, more vibrant and more confident nation. We look forward to sharing more details in the coming months, and there will be plenty of opportunities to get involved.
Beyond the SMIA, we welcome the investment that Creative Scotland has allocated more broadly to music organisations across the country. Of the 251 organisations to receive Multi-Year funding, 46 of them (18.3%) specialise in music – an increase from the previous Regularly Funded Organisations (RFO) Network, where 19 of the 121 funded organisations (15.7%) specialised in music. Some additional organisations who have received Multi-Year Funding may also deliver music-focused activity, but it will not be their main area of focus. We look forward to seeing a further 3 music specialist organisations from the Development Stream join the portfolio in 2026/27. Multi-Year Funding replaces the previous Regular Funding model, and approximately £27m of the total budget for 2025-28 has been allocated to organisations specialising in music.*
Encouragingly, of the 46 music-focused organisations, 29 of them are receiving a multi-year funding commitment for the first time. These organisations span performing companies, festivals, community groups and sector development bodies, each contributing to – and reflecting the breadth of – Scotland’s musical landscape. Multi-Year Funding will sustain and strengthen organisations at all levels, from grassroots initiatives to established institutions, ensuring a broader and more inclusive support network for artists, industry professionals and audiences alike.
At a time where the sector faces immense challenges, this investment provides much-needed stability and restores a sense of optimism, which has been increasingly hard to find in recent times. With more organisations now receiving sustained support, there’s a greater opportunity to enhance collaboration, drive innovation and increase resilience. From community-led projects that nurture local talent to world-class events which showcase Scottish music on the global stage, Multi-Year Funding will help strengthen the sector’s infrastructure and increase opportunities for music in Scotland to thrive. We look forward to seeing the impact.
We understand that whilst this news brings welcome relief for many of our colleagues across the sector, not everyone will have been successful in securing Creative Scotland support, and some will have received less investment than requested. As the sector support body for Scotland’s music industry, the SMIA is gathering insights from applicants about the impact of these decisions. We’d welcome the opportunity to hear from all organisations that applied for Multi-Year Funding who had music represented in their programme. Complete our survey.
Additionally, we have collated information on some of the wider support available to music organisations based in Scotland, including on funding, mental health and wellbeing, and organisational resilience. Explore support resources for music organisations in Scotland.
The SMIA envisions Scotland’s music industry as a globally recognised, autonomous force. We look forward to continuing to work with colleagues across the sector, both within and out-with the Multi-Year Funding portfolio, to drive Scottish music forward and see it reach its undeniable potential. It is, after all, the soundtrack and stories of our lives, and an invaluable expression of our diverse cultural identity.
Robert Kilpatrick
CEO and Creative Director
Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA)
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*£27,063,419 based on Creative Scotland’s Published Awards, excluding the Development Programme: https://www.creativescotland.com/news-stories/latest-news/archive/2025/01/multi-year-funding-outcome-announcement