Visegrad Fund

Visegrad Strategic Grants is a grant program run and financed by the International Visegrad Fund aimed at fostering cooperation among the Visegrad Group (V4) countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) via supporting major projects for sustainable regional cooperation and serving, inter alia, the development of civil society, the improvement of mutual awareness among the V4 societies, and the promotion of the V4 region in line with the annual priorities defined jointly by the current and the upcoming V4 Presidency.

Projects must develop meaningful cooperation and ensure active participation of organizations from all V4 countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) and have a regional character, both in terms of partnership and content.

Strategic priorities

Projects must clearly address one of the annual strategic priorities of the Visegrad Group:

• Research, development and innovation; digitalisation (projects emphasizing the importance of mobility, networking, knowledge sharing and capacity building in the V4 & its neighbourhood);
• Post-COVID Recovery (projects focusing on supporting the V4’s resilience/recovery in terms of health, economy and society, through innovative solutions);
• Challenges and perspectives of the young generation in the Visegrad region (promoting civic engagement and youth volunteerism; promoting technical, artistic and handcraft skills building of youth; raising young people’s awareness of Visegrad cooperation).

Strategic priorities are announced annually by the V4 country holding the rotating presidency over the group, which from July 2022 to June 2023 is Slovakia.

Who can apply?

• Consortium of organizations of which 3 or more are based in different Visegrad countries;
• All types of non-governmental, civil society organizations (CSOs); municipalities and local governments; schools, higher education institutions; research and scientific bodies and public institutions are eligible as lead partner (applicant) and partners in the consortia;
• Market actors, e.g., companies – especially innovation and startuprelated actors – with a legal entity are also eligible, but only if their Visegrad project is of nonprofit character.

Grants cover up to 100% of project budget with 15% for overheads.

It is possible to submit only one project application for each deadline. A grantee can have a maximum of two running projects at the same time, in different grant schemes (e.g. applicants having a running Visegrad Grant may apply for Visegrad+ Grants or Strategic Grants).

Although there is no strict limitation for the size of the financial support you can apply for, the project budget is usually between €20.000 and €60,000 euros. Each submitted proposal is evaluated on its on merit, taking into account the potential outreach and impact of the project, the elaboration of the grant budget in the “Outputs” section and adherence to the “value-for-money” principle.