Julkaisutuki (Publication support)

If you publish Finnish music as sheet music, this covers the cost of getting it onto paper. MES's publication support goes towards editorial work, fair-copying and engraving, and printing — for conventional printed editions and for print-on-demand scores. It can also stretch to other publishing activity in the field.

What it will not do is pay to release a recording. The guidelines say that outright, and it is worth reading twice, because the name suggests otherwise and MES handles recording costs through entirely separate schemes. If your project is an album rather than a score, this is the wrong door.

The support is weighted towards publishers working professionally, so a composer self-issuing a single edition is not the obvious fit, though the wording leaves some room. The guidelines do not state a maximum award, a fixed rate, or whether match funding is expected — you are told what the money is for rather than how much of your budget it will carry. Nor do they publish assessment criteria, so there is no stated basis on which applications are weighed against each other.

Applications go through the foundation's own online system, which has an English interface even though the guidance itself is in Finnish. There are two rounds a year, one in March and one in September, each open for a calendar month and closing at midnight on the final day; the foundation is explicit that late applications are not considered and that the server can be slow on the last day. Reporting on how the money was spent is done through the same system afterwards.