The International Visegrad Fund

In 2008, the total budget of the International Visegrad Fund (IVF) amounted to 5 million EUR i.e. each country contributed the sum of 1.25 million EUR. In 2008, the IVF supported 151 small projects, 240 standard projects, and 7 strategic projects and approved grants for 24 artists from the V4 countries within the Visegrad Artist Residency Programme.

In the academic year 2008/2009, the IVF provided 176 scholarships (58 intra-Visegrad, 42 in-coming, 13 out-going and 73 scholarships for Ukrainian students and researchers) to the sum total of 1,295,500 EUR.

The Visegrad scholarship sub-programme for Ukraine met with exceptional interest on the part of the Ukrainian public and government. With 63 allocated scholarships, the IVF has become one of the largest providers of scholarships in Ukraine. The establishment of an individual Visegrad scholarship programme for Belarus as part of the ‘in-coming’ scholarships was also approved in 2008, with financial resources allocated for the provision of 80 semesters of education for Belarus students at universities in V4 countries beginning from the academic year 2009/2010. Within the Visegrad University Studies Grant, the IVF supported a total of 33 facilities in 2008.

The IVF also started to implement a new type of so-called flexible V4 project for Belarus (there are plans to further expand these projects to include Serbia and Georgia) with the goal of maintaining the pro-European orientation in these countries. The realization of projects financed from the flexible IVF fund gives the IVF a completely new dimension. Based on the political demand of V4 countries, and approved by the V4 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the IVF will ensure the realization of a specific project in the target country. At the end of August and the beginning of September 2008, before the parliamentary elections in Belarus on 28 September 2008, the IVF realized a flexible project for the support of 16 independent Belarus newspapers.