Visegrad Strategic Program

The aim of the Visegrad Strategic Program (Strategic Grants) is to sup­port long-term projects of strate­gic char­ac­ter that link insti­tu­tions of all four Visegrad Group coun­tries. The projects must adhere to at least one of the pri­or­i­ties defined by the Conference of Ministers for the given year (see below). The pri­or­i­ties adhere to the pri­or­i­ties of the given Presidency of the Visegrad Group (see below).

Deadline: 30 March 2012

All grant appli­ca­tions must be sub­mit­ted through the on-line appli­ca­tion sys­tem by 12:00 (noon) CET on 30 March 2012; signed hard-copy ver­sions (print­outs) with accom­pa­ny­ing doc­u­men­tation can be deliv­ered by 16:30 CET on the same day or sent by post with 30-March post­mark as the latest.

Budget and time frame

The max­i­mum time frame for the imple­men­ta­tion of the Visegrad Strategic Program grants is 36 months. The finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion of the Fund can­not exceed 70% of the total project costs, includ­ing the in-kind con­tri­bu­tion of the appli­cant, or in-kind con­tri­bu­tions of other co-financing sub­jects. There is no limit to the max­i­mum amount granted to the projects selected; the aver­age is about €30,000 per project (see the list of approved projects). Potential appli­cants are strongly advised to con­sult the Fund prior to (and in suf­fi­cient enough advance to) the sub­mis­sion of the appli­ca­tion for the Strategic Grant.

2012 Priority—Internal Cohesion of the Visegrad Group

The aim of the pri­or­ity is to give sup­port to a wide range of activ­i­ties that con­tribute to the strength­en­ing of the Visegrad Group’s inter­nal cohe­sion. It is para­mount that projects imple­mented under this pri­or­ity put a strong empha­sis on dif­fer­ent aspects of coop­er­a­tion inside the V4 region and focus on cohe­sive strate­gies in the inwards direc­tion (i.e., sup­port for knowl­edge exchange among the V4 coun­tries, sup­port for coop­er­a­tion in key areas of com­mon eco­nomic con­cern, net­work­ing, part­ner­ship build­ing and people-to-people contacts, common ana­lyt­i­cal research on socio-economic processes in the V4 region, etc.), as well as in the out­ward direc­tion, reflect­ing both our com­mon pri­or­i­ties and impacts and chal­lenges of exter­nal devel­op­ment on V4 area (i.e., energy secu­rity, inte­gra­tion of the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership project, eco­nomic com­pet­i­tive­ness in the European and global con­texts, migra­tion, etc.). Joint pro­mo­tion of var­i­ous forms of Visegrad coop­er­a­tion as a pos­i­tive model within the EU, NATO and in regions neigh­bor­ing V4 is also a strongly wel­comed addi­tional project feature.