The International Visegrad Fund is an international organization based in Bratislava founded by the governments of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries - the Czech Republic, 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 co-operation among citizens and institutions in the region as well as between the V4 region and other countries, especially the Western Balkans and countries of the Eastern Partnership. The fund does so 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 (€8 million as of 2014) consists of equal contributions of the Visegrad Group’s governments. The Fund runs four regular grant programs (Small Grants, Standard Grants, the Visegrad Strategic Conferences, and the Visegrad+ program), a separateVisegrad 4 Eastern Partnership, program with its separate grant and scholarship schemes, scholarship schemes, a multi-chapter artist-in-residence program, and a curriculum-building program for universities.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), municipalities and local or regional governments, schools and universities, but also private companies or individual citizens are eligible for grant support, provided that their projects deal with the region and further develop co-operation 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 administrative body of the Fund is the Secretariat.
are meant to facilitate study in MA programmes and in PhD research and study programmes for a period of 1 up to 4 semesters at all accredited universities (public and private) in the V4 countries, possibly also in other countries (see bellow).
The following types of scholarships are on offer:
the so-called In-Coming Scholarships, granted to applicants from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia/FYROM, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine thus enabling them to study in one of the V4 countries;
the so-called Intra-Visegrad Scholarships, granted to applicants from V4 countries who want to study/do research in some V4 country other than their own;
the so-called Out-Going Scholarships granted to applicants from V4 countries who want to study/do research in any of the following countries and/or territories: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia/FYROM, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, and Ukraine.
Interested parties may apply for the scholarships once a year.
Further details about the above-mentioned grants and scholarships, including the application forms, are available from the International Visegrad Fund website. For more information about the Visegrad group please visit www.visegradgroup.eu.
Over the past 5 years, the Faculty of Education, Charles University has been visited by several students benefiting from the Visegrad Fund scholarship programme. They were here studying, researching and writing their diploma or doctoral theses. Each of them gave very positive feedback about the study sojourn and considered it very beneficial for their subsequent scholarly pursuits.
