International Visegrad Fund

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 Štiřín, 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+ pro­gram), 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.

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