The International Visegrad Fund is an international organization based in Bratislava founded by the governments of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries—the Czech Republic, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Poland, and the Slovak Republic—in Czech Republic, on June 9, 2000.

The purpose of the Fund is to facilitate and promote the development of closer cooperation among V4 countries (and of V4 countries with other countries, especially but not exclusively non-EU member states in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus) through grant support of common cultural, scientific and educational projects, youth exchanges, cross-border projects and tourism promotion, and through individual mobility programs (scholarships, residencies).

The budget of the Fund (€7 million as of 2012) consists of equal contributions of the Visegrad Group's governments. The Fund runs four grant programs (Small Grants, Standard Grants, the Visegrad Strategic Program and the Visegrad+ pro-gram), several scholarship schemes, a triple artist-in-residence program and a curriculum-building program for universities.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), municipalities and local or regional governments, schools and universities, but also private companies or individuals are eligible for the grant support provided that their projects deal with the region and further develop cooperation among project partners based in the region.

The governing bodies of the Fund are the Council of Ambassadors and the Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. The executive body of the Fund is composed of the Executive Director and the Deputy Executive Director. The administrative body of the Fund is the Secretariat.

The aim of the Extended Standard Grants within theV4EaP pro­gram is to sup­port medium-term projects of strategic character that significantly contribute to providing access to the unique expe­ri­ence and know-how of the Visegrad Group coun­tries with the processes of demo­c­ra­tic trans­for­ma­tion and inte­gration and with regional cooperation. The Extended Standard Grants are meant to sup­port reform processes, political asso­ci­a­tion and eco­nomic inte­gra­tion with the EU, strengthen the institutional capacity, contribute to the devel­op­ment of civil soci­ety and the over­all trans­for­ma­tion of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) coun­tries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine).

Projects sub­mit­ted to the fund must involve grantees and project part­ners from at least three V4 coun­tries and a sin­gle EaP coun­try. Projects are solicited through pub­licly avail­able calls for pro­pos­als. The over­all bud­get for the pro­gram in 2014 (more than €1.3 mil­lion) con­sists of finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden.

Deadline: September 22, 2014