In a statement, the two foundations said that the initiative foresees the opening of a competition as soon as March that will double the amount funding social inclusion projects in the arts in Portugal and to which the two parties are to contribute equally.

PARTIS & Art for Change is to have a budget of €1.5 million to support arts projects with a social impact.

"This collaboration is the result of the work that both foundations have been developing in this area for several years and which, through PARTIS & Art for a Change, will be strengthened and enhanced," the statement said.

The Gulbenkian has been supporting social intervention projects for the arts through the PARTIS - Artistic Practices for Social Inclusion programme since 2013. In three initiatives - the third is underway - 48 projects have so far been supported, with a total of €3 million in funding.

In the first two initiatives, PARTIS involved around 11,500 participants, involved 651 partner organisations and resulted in almost 1,000 public presentations (shows, installations, exhibitions) that mobilised over 200,000 spectators.

La Caixa's own similar Art for Change programme has existed since 2008 in Spain. To date, 383 projects have received funding, totalling around €5 million, involving 59,000 participants, 170 cultural entities and 308 artists.

The projects supported by the Gulbenkian's PARTIS initiative are showcases in an exhibition inaugurated on Friday at the foundation's headquarters in Lisbon. The free show, which runs until Sunday, presents some of the 15 projects being supported as part of the foundation's third initiative.

It opens on Friday with the international conference 'Taking risks together: what new centres of artistic creation today?', in which Philipp Dietachmair, of the European Cultural Foundation (Netherlands), Stella Duffy, co-founder of the "Fun Palaces" project (UK), Magda Henriques, artistic director of Comédias do Minho, and Marco Paiva, founder of Terra Amarela - both from Portugal - are to participate, among others.

On Saturday morning, the focus shifts to the municipal library in Lisbon's Marvila neighbourhood, where the Meio no Meio project will be presented, an Artemrede initiative that provides arts training for young people and adults living in the Greater Lisbon area as a way to promote learning and active citizenship.

At the end of the show, there is to be a concert by the Body Percussion Orchestra of the Loures Conservatory of Arts, which aims to prove that anyone can make music using only their body, and a screening of the film 'Djon África', by Filipa Reis and João Miller Guerra, about a young man who travels to Cabo Verde in search of his family roots and of his father, whom he has never met.