Rijksakademie Tech Fellowship 2027: €22,000 for Eleven Months as a Workshop Specialist and Researcher in Amsterdam

Rijksakademie Tech Fellowship 2027: €22,000 for Eleven Months as a Workshop Specialist and Researcher in Amsterdam

There is a particular kind of person this fellowship was designed for, and if you are that person you will recognise yourself in one sentence: you are an artist or maker whose deepest curiosity is about the material itself — how the glaze behaves, why that binder yellows, which firing method actually costs less carbon — and you have never found a job that pays you to chase that question rather than treating it as a hobby that subsidises your real work.

The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam runs the Tech Fellowship Programme for exactly that gap. It is not the famous Rijksakademie residency, and the institution is emphatic on this point. It is a trainee-and-research programme in which you spend two days a week learning to run a technical workshop alongside its specialist, and two days a week on an independent research project of your own design. The 2027 edition runs from January to December 2027, pays €22,000 for eleven months, and closes for applications on 1 September 2026.

The programme is recruiting across six disciplines — eco, ceramics, library/collection, paint, print, and wood — but the Rijksakademie states plainly that there is capacity for only five tech fellows in 2027. Which disciplines make the final cut is decided by the strength of the applications received. That single fact should shape how you approach this: you are not only competing against other candidates in your workshop, you are making the case that your discipline deserves one of the five seats at all.

Key Details at a Glance

What the Fellowship Actually Provides

The headline number is €22,000 for eleven months. Read that carefully alongside the terms: it is paid on an invoicing basis, which means you are engaged as a self-employed contractor, not an employee. In the Dutch context that has real consequences — you invoice the Rijksakademie, you handle your own BTW and income tax position, and you do not accrue employee benefits, holiday pay, or pension through the fellowship. This is why registration as self-employed appears in the eligibility criteria rather than as a footnote.

It is also why the four-days-a-week structure matters financially. The fellowship deliberately leaves a day open. Many fellows keep other commissions, teaching, or studio work running alongside the programme, and the Rijksakademie’s structure accommodates that rather than fighting it.

Beyond the money, what you get is access. The programme provides a trainee/research placement inside a working technical workshop, personal guidance and coaching from the Tech Fellowship mentor, the ability to attend workshops, lectures, and seminars relevant to your discipline, exchange with other institutions, workshops, libraries, and collections, and a shared workspace with the other fellows.

That shared office is easy to skim past and shouldn’t be. Five people, each embedded in a different technical discipline, sitting in the same room for a year, is a structure that produces cross-pollination on its own. The Rijksakademie explicitly builds on this: part of the learning trajectory involves exchange between workshops, because, as the institution puts it, many projects operate across overlapping materials and techniques.

The Six Disciplines and What Each One Wants

Each place has its own technical specialist and its own research brief. Applying without matching your proposal to the specific brief is the fastest way to be filtered out.

Eco. The eco fellow is the odd one out: not attached to a single workshop, but moving between them. The research focus is sustainable and bio-based materials and techniques used in artists’ practices. The Rijksakademie notes this designation may also go to a fellow with an ecological profile in another discipline whose proposal has a clear focus on sustainability and non-toxic, biodegradable, environmentally friendly materials.

Ceramics. Technical specialists Viki Nagy and Hilde Onis. The workshop supports clay and ceramics work across a wide range of techniques, scales, and finishes, and encourages experimentation with related materials such as glass. The published research directions are unusually specific: glass shaping and forming processes that can be developed within ceramics workshop infrastructure; the communal aspects of working with clay; firing methods such as saggar, pit, raku, and wood firing, including sustainable firing practices and alternative energy sources; and the origins, availability, and life cycles of ceramic materials. You may propose your own direction, but these four tell you exactly where the workshop’s attention is.

Library/collection. Specialist Mariëtta Dirker. Also called the theory workshop, it holds an extensive library plus an art collection and archive spanning the 18th century to the present. The research question is fixed: how can a collection currently available only online or on request be presented and made accessible? The brief suggests documenting the making process in depth, linking works to the expertise across the technical workshops, and using something like twenty works in various media or from different periods as a starting point. This is the one place where academics, art historians, anthropologists, and sociologists with art interests are explicitly invited alongside artists and makers.

Paint workshop. Technical specialist Arend Nijkamp. Residents get advice on synthetic resins, surface structures, and conservation methods; the workshop has a dust-free spray cabin and space to stretch very large canvases. The research brief is concrete: study material databases, online recipe databases, and similar initiatives, then build a physical database in the paint workshop of nontoxic, non-chemical, biodegradable, and sustainable alternative materials for artists. Restorers and conservators are explicitly encouraged to apply, and you need hands-on experience with paint, plastic, rubber, silicones, and glue.

Print workshop. Technical specialist Pieter Verweij, who also coordinates the whole programme. Etching, lithography, screen printing, large-format inkjet, risograph, and bookbinding. Research should focus on one component within the field of print. One line is worth flagging: for the coming year, screen printers in particular are invited to submit a proposal. Affinity with paper and/or textiles as a medium is desirable, as is familiarity with relevant software and interest in digital developments in print.

Wood workshop. Technical specialists Roger Cremers and Seamus Cater. Traditional techniques paired with modern developments, with sustainability central — responsible use of wood, reuse of materials, minimising waste. Carpenters, furniture makers, and instrument makers are welcome alongside artists. Prior knowledge of hand tools and machine operation is expected.

Who Is Eligible

The baseline requirements apply across every discipline:

• Young and mid-career artists, designers, or makers with advanced knowledge of, and interest in expanding their skills in, crafts, materials, and/or techniques.
• An independent, curious work attitude, enjoyment of working with others and sharing knowledge, and the ability to work in an international community.
• Availability four days a week for the duration of the programme.
• Living in the Netherlands at the moment of applying and during 2027.
• Registration as self-employed.

On top of that sits the discipline-specific experience: ceramics in the broadest sense, wood in the broadest sense, hands-on experience with paint and its adjacent materials, printmaking or photographic technique, or a background in special collections and archival practice.

The Netherlands residency requirement is a hard gate, not a preference, and it applies at both ends — when you apply and throughout the fellowship year. If you are outside the Netherlands now and hoping to relocate on the strength of an offer, this is not the programme for that.

The Application Process and Timeline

Applications go through a single online form at form.jotform.com/261741446499367. Before you open it, the Rijksakademie asks that you read the full information on the apply page for your discipline — the briefs differ enough that this is genuine advice rather than boilerplate.

The centrepiece of the application is the independent research proposal. Every discipline requires one, and every discipline asks for the same two things: a clearly and concisely defined research question, and, where possible, an indication of how you intend to share and/or archive your research. That second clause is the one applicants most often treat as optional. It is not decoration. The programme’s stated criteria include “the ambition to conduct and document research,” and the fellowship year ends in a final public presentation and a report. A proposal that says nothing about dissemination is answering only half the brief.

The stated selection criteria, repeated across every discipline, are:

• The artistic and technical knowledge of the candidate
• The submitted proposal
• The ambition to conduct and document research, and to increase one’s own knowledge
• The desire to contribute to the work of others
• The anticipated added value for the field

The timeline after submission is tight and specific:

• 1 September 2026 — application deadline
• Week 39, 21–25 September 2026 — interviews at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam
  • Monday 21 September: eco and paint/plastics
  • Tuesday 22 September: ceramics and wood
  • Wednesday 23 September: library/collection and print
• January 2027 — programme begins
• December 2027 — programme ends

Three weeks from deadline to interview means shortlisting is fast. Hold the relevant date in your calendar now; the interviews happen in person in Amsterdam, which is a manageable ask given the residency requirement but still worth planning around.

How to Build a Proposal That Survives the Cut

Two criteria in that list — “the desire to contribute to the work of others” and “the anticipated added value for the field” — are where strong candidates separate from merely qualified ones.

The Tech Fellowship is a teaching-and-service role wrapped around a research role. Two of your four days go to advising residents on craft, technique, and material, developing technical solutions, contributing to the daily operation of the workshop, and giving workshops in which you share your findings with residents. A proposal written as though the research is the whole job misreads the structure. The strongest applications make the two halves feed each other: the research question emerges from something the workshop keeps running into, and the answer becomes something the workshop can use after you leave.

Scope is the other common failure. Eleven months at two days a week is roughly ninety working days of research, interrupted by internal presentations and evaluations throughout the year. A question like “how do we make ceramics sustainable” cannot land in that space. “Which of four low-tech firing methods can be run safely on Rijksakademie infrastructure, and what does each cost in fuel and time per firing” can. The briefs themselves model this level of specificity — the paint workshop asks for a physical database of alternative materials, not a treatise on toxicity.

Finally, take the “added value for the field” phrase at face value. The Rijksakademie is a small institution with a long memory and a stated interest in preserving traditional craft knowledge while exploring new technologies. Work that stays inside the building is worth less to it than work another workshop, elsewhere, could pick up and repeat.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Confusing this with the Rijksakademie residency. The institution says outright that the Tech Fellowship is not intended for developing a personal artistic practice in the way the residency is. If your motivation letter reads like a residency application — my practice, my direction, my next body of work — it is answering a different question. The regular residency programme opens its next application round in January 2027 if that is what you actually want.

Ignoring the self-employed requirement until after an offer. Sorting out registration takes time in the Netherlands. Handle it before you apply, not after.

Proposing across the whole discipline instead of one component. The print workshop asks explicitly that research “preferably focus on one component” of a wide field. The same instinct applies everywhere.

Skipping the archiving question. It appears in every single discipline brief. Answer it.

Assuming your discipline has a guaranteed seat. Six disciplines, five places. A weak application in a discipline can cost that discipline its slot entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is €22,000 a salary? No. It is compensation for eleven months paid on an invoicing basis, which means you are contracted as a self-employed professional and are responsible for your own tax and social insurance position.

Can I apply from outside the Netherlands? No. You must be living in the Netherlands both at the moment of applying and during 2027.

Can I keep other work? The commitment is four days a week, which leaves room by design. There is no published restriction on other activity outside those days.

Can I apply to more than one discipline? The published material does not address this. If you have a genuine case for two, contact the coordinator rather than guessing.

Do I have to be a recent graduate? No. The programme is open to young and mid-career artists, designers, and makers. For the library/collection place, the range widens further to academics, art historians, anthropologists, and sociologists with art interests.

What happens at the end? Internal presentations and evaluations run throughout the year, culminating in a final public presentation and a written report. Past fellows have presented work during the Rijksakademie’s Open Studios.

Is the fellowship renewable? Nothing in the published information indicates a second-year option. The programme is described as a one-year trainee/research programme.

Background and Context

The Rijksakademie launched the Tech Fellowship Programme in January 2022, and cohorts have run every year since — nineteen fellows across the 2022 through 2026 intakes. That track record matters when you are weighing whether to spend a serious block of August on a proposal: this is an established programme with a stable structure, not a pilot.

Funding comes in part from Stichting Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Rabobank Nederland, and Stichting Van Achterbergh-Domhof. The stated rationale for the programme is preserving traditional craft knowledge while exploring new technologies in the workshops, so the institution can keep responding to contemporary challenges — environmental transition and digitalisation are the two it names. Read the discipline briefs again with that framing and the pattern is obvious: nearly every one of them routes through sustainability, material life cycles, or accessibility of knowledge.

Official Links and Contacts

• Application and full discipline briefs: rijksakademie.nl/en/tech-fellows/apply
• Application form: form.jotform.com/261741446499367
• Programme announcement: rijksakademie.nl/en/news/2026-06-30-tech-fellowship-programme-2027
• Coordinator: Pieter Verweij — [email protected]
• Institution: Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Sarphatistraat 470, NL-1018 GW Amsterdam, +31 (0)20 52 70 300, [email protected]

Next Steps

With the deadline on 1 September 2026, you have roughly four weeks. A workable sequence: confirm your self-employment registration is current, then read the brief for your discipline in full and note the specific research directions it lists. Draft a research question narrow enough to answer in ninety working days, and write down how you would document and share the result. Then, before you submit, check the proposal against the five published criteria one at a time — especially the two about contributing to others’ work and adding value to the field, which are the easiest to leave implicit and the most costly to omit.

If your discipline is print and you are a screen printer, or your work sits squarely in sustainable and bio-based materials, this cycle is tilted your way. With five places across six disciplines, the applications that clearly answer the workshop’s own stated questions are the ones that decide which disciplines get funded at all.