Methodology and sources
This page belongs to the exhibition. It sets out where every figure comes from, which source carries it and where our statements reach their limits. Anyone who wants to check the exhibition should be able to do so without having to ask.
In short
Six real funding programmes in five rooms. All of them took a risk: four adjusted course along the way, two hold up today. We build on what they learned. Every figure in the exhibition comes from a named source; all sources are listed below with a link and the date checked. We collected nothing ourselves and extrapolated nothing.
The museum is not a study. It is an annotated selection of real programmes — chosen because they show something, not because they represent the average.
Which figure comes from which source
One block per programme, in the order of the rooms. The number in square brackets is the exhibition’s footnote and leads to the full source entry below.
The grant without support
Exhibit 1: The cheque with no covering letter. Wirtshausprämie (pub grant), Lower Austria, since 2024.
Figure on the page: €10,000 per business · 57 pubs funded · roughly one in five of them closed again
Period: Sources from 2026. The analysis itself is current as of May 2026 and covers the funding rounds since 2024; the current one is not included.
The application as doorman
Exhibit 2: The pile of applications. Community Ownership Fund, round 1.
Figure on the page: over 81% of applications rejected
Period: Sources from 2025.
The time after the money
Exhibit 3: The certificate with an end date. „Dritte Orte“ NRW.
Figure on the page: funding period three years, then a stabilisation grant
Period: Sources from 2026.
When the grant stays
Exhibit 4: The drip. Fabriques de Territoire, 407 places.
Figure on the page: €50,000/year · over three years, declining by design
Period: Sources from 2023.
Pub is The Hub (UK)
Figure on the page: up to £6,000 per project · over eight pounds of benefit per pound invested, by calculation
Period: Sources from 2025 and 2026.
1000 cafés (France)
Figure on the page: 71% of the budget for selection, training and support
Period: Sources from 2024.
All sources
The number matches the footnote in the exhibition. Behind every title sits the original. The date checked says when we last opened the link; if a page disappears, we replace the source.
Gastgeber in Niederösterreich – Wirtshausprämie (Förderrichtlinie, Fassung 2026)
Year 2026 · Link checked on 1 August 2026
profil: „Schnitzelbonus“ in Niederösterreich — jedes 5. Lokal wieder geschlossen
Year 2026 · Link checked on 1 August 2026
MHCLG: Community Ownership Fund — Interim Evaluation Report (GOV.UK)
Year 2025 · Link checked on 1 August 2026
MKW NRW: Programm „Dritte Orte“ inkl. Stabilisierungsförderung
Year 2026 · Link checked on 1 August 2026
Agence Phare / ANCT: Évaluation du programme Fabriques de Territoire — Rapport final (PDF)
Year 2023 · Link checked on 1 August 2026
Raising a glass: beloved village pubs to be helped with new funding to broaden their services
Year 2025 · Link checked on 1 August 2026
Grant funding available to help pubs add new services and activities
Year 2026 · Link checked on 2 August 2026
Groupe SOS: 1000 cafés — Rapport d'activités 2024 (PDF)
Year 2024 · Link checked on 1 August 2026
What these figures cannot do
Five limitations we name ourselves — not only when asked.
n = 57 is a small number of cases.
The Lower Austrian rate is based on 57 funded businesses. 11 of them have closed again; in those cases the grant was reclaimed. With so few cases, every single closure shifts the rate noticeably. That is an indication, not statistical proof — and it does not support extrapolation to other federal states or to Germany.
£8 is a modelled value, not a cash figure.
The leverage cited for Pub is The Hub — over eight pounds per pound invested — comes from a model of the benefit created for the place: journeys saved, services retained, less isolation. It is not an amount booked anywhere, and it is not income for the pub. Anyone who adopts the value also adopts the assumptions behind it.
Up to £6,000 is a ceiling, not an average.
Pub is The Hub names the maximum a project can receive. What a typical grant looks like is not published by the programme — an average figure exists nowhere. Anyone treating this amount as a basis for calculation is working with the maximum, not with the normal case.
The figures from Lower Austria are an interim state.
They are current as of May 2026 and cover the funding rounds since 2024. The current round is not included in them. The programme continues. The rate can move in both directions — up if more businesses give up, down if the later rounds go better. We keep it updated instead of leaving it as it stands.
The selection is curated, not representative.
The programmes in this exhibition are here because each one shows a lesson particularly clearly. They are not a sample. There are funding programmes that tell none of these lessons: ones that work without drawing attention, and ones that nobody has evaluated. Anyone looking for a complete overview of European place-based funding will not find it here.
And that is why we do it this way.
Five principles — one from each room. They stand at the end of the exhibition and determine how we work: advice before money, small amounts, an ending that is fixed from the start. If a figure on this page turns, we re-examine the principle behind it — and say so here.