The government proposal on legislation on the reform of the administrative branch of the Ministry of Education and Culture was approved by Parliament on 18 June 2025.
According to the draft legislation, the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) and the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI) will merge to form the Finnish Arts and Culture Agency at the beginning of 2026.
The statutory tasks and functions of KAVI will remain unchanged in the new agency.
The tasks of Taike will also continue as before, but the peer review structure will change. According to the draft legislation, the current national and regional arts councils will be discontinued. In the future, the preparation of decisions based on peer reviews will be carried out by grant assessment panels drawn from a pool of experts.
The Finnish Arts and Culture Agency will have a Council of Arts and Culture, which will make decisions on the awarding of grants and prizes based on preparations made by the grant assessment panels. The Council of Arts and Culture will be appointed by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and its task will be to appoint the members of the pool of experts.
The changes will be phased in. The Finnish Arts and Culture Agency will begin operations on 1 January 2026, but the changes to the arts councils will be made after a transition period as of 1 July 2026.
The Act on the Finnish Arts and Culture Agency can be found on Finlex.fi.