Australian Alumni Grants Fund

AAGF – Round 2.1, 2019

The Australian Alumni Grants Fund (AAGF), formerly known as the Small Grants Fund (SGF) is an activity under the Australian Alumni in Vietnam Strategy administered by Aus4Skills. The AAGF has been established to fund proposals from Vietnamese alumni of Australian education institutions to consolidate alumni’s professional knowledge and skills; contribute to organisational change for selected Vietnamese government, private sector and civil society organisations, and other partners; and strengthen alumni links with Australia.

Following the success of the AAGF Round 1-2017 and AAGF Round 2-2018, grants under the AAGF Round 2.1 - 2019 target participants in Aus4skills non-scholarships human resource development (HRD) activities as these alumni were not eligible for the previous rounds. This pilot round allows HRD alumni to build on and sustain gains achieved by supporting them to consolidate or amplify/scale up and extend their application projects, or the application of learning obtained from HRD activities more generally. Follow-up projects funded under the AAGF should contribute to greater sustainability of learning of HRD alumni, and where relevant more lasting impact of their application projects.

AAGF proposals must be completed in English and submitted online at https://vietnam.smartygrants.com.au/AAGFRound2.1 by the midnight of Wednesday 10 April 2019.

NOTE: Access to the SmartyGrants link will be ready from 1st March 2019.

Any AAGF project must contribute to one or more of the following three Aus4Skills Program Outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Male and female alumni use new skills and knowledge to make positive contributions to selected priority areas
• Outcome 2: Selected Vietnamese government, private sector and civil society organisations, and other partners, demonstrate organisational change as program-facilitated improvement(s) in policies, practices and/or performance standards
• Outcome 3: Australia and Vietnam have stronger, sustainable links in selected sectors/agencies

Eligible categories for a grant

The following categories of projects are eligible for AAGF funding:

Category 1. Development and conduct of a training program or training course(s), workshop(s), seminar(s), or conference(s) (proposals merely to attend one of these events are not eligible), or public awareness campaigns or advocacy activities. 

Category 2. Applied research. This category may include presentation of papers or posters of which an alumnus is the lead author at conferences located only in Australia or Vietnam.

Category 3. Organisational and Institutional Change. This category provides scope for innovative activities that contribute to changes/improvements in an organisation and to a better workplace enabling environment, including for the advancement of women. The improvements may be in the form of policy, practice and/or performance standards.

Category 4. HRD application projects/action plans. This category refers to a single or group application project or action plan or the extension or upscaling of these projects/plans that have been or are being applied as a result of participation in Aus4Skills HRD activities. This category also includes a project which involves the application of learning more generally from participation in Aus4Skills HRD activities.

Applicant eligibility

All alumni of Aus4Skills Australia Awards Short Courses (AASC) and Informal Learning Opportunities (ILOs) are eligible to apply. Other alumni of Australian education institutions can be part of an eligible team of alumni who submit an AAGF application, with the condition that the team is led by an HRD alumnus.

Funding

The value of a grant is based on the following table.

Any project that has the involvement of an alumni team must clearly demonstrate that it is a team project with specified roles for each alumnus. It should show the added value in submitting a team proposal as compared to individual submissions.

Additional funding

a. Co-funding

Aus4Skills will provide matching funds of 100% of a contribution by the applicant, employer or other relevant Vietnamese organisation (e.g. industry association) to a maximum of VND50,000,000. The co-funding must be in the form of cash (not ‘in kind’ contribution) and be shown as part of the budget in the AAGF application. Such a co-funding arrangement will increase the amount of funds available for a proposal as well as strengthen the applicant’s and the employer’s commitment to the proposal. Aus4Skills will assess in its sole discretion whether ‘matching funds’ are available.

#The maximum matching funds are VND50,000,000 regardless of the amount of co-funding amount. Aus4Skills will not match funds sourced from loans.

b. Partnership with an Australian organisation/expert(s)

As a key targeted outcome of Aus4Skills is establishing or expanding links with Australia, applicants will be rewarded with additional funding if their proposal involves a partnership arrangement with an Australian organisation or expert(s). The partnership arrangement must involve substantive inputs and support (intellectual, physical or monetary) from the Australian organisation/expert(s), which should be outlined in a letter of support to be uploaded in the grant application. A maximum of VND50,000,000 will be available as additional funding under this arrangement. The additional amount should be included in the AAGF application budget. Aus4Skills will assess in its sole discretion whether the ‘partnership’ qualifies for the additional funding and the level of that funding.

Example 3:

# Important Note:

The maximum additional amount available for any one proposal under either of these two arrangements is VND50,000,000. Therefore, where a proposal meets both a. and b. above, the maximum additional amount is VND50,000,000.

Funding for translation 

All applications and subsequent progress and completion reports must be written in English. Where an application is approved, the applicant(s) will be entitled to claim the costs of translation into English of the mentioned-above documents up to a maximum of VND3,400,000 per application. The cost for translation must be included in the application budget and receipts must be submitted to support claims for translation costs.

Duration of grant

The maximum duration for implementing a grant project is 12 months. Grant implementation should commence within 3 months of the notification of grant approval.

Proposal evaluation criteria

Each application is to be evaluated against six key criteria: 1) Strategic Purpose, 2) Methodology/Approaches, 3) Gender, Disability and Social Inclusion, 4) Financial and Risk Management, 5) Ownership, Sustainability and Communications and 6) Monitoring & Evaluation.

Equity of Access Fund

For alumni with disability and rural disadvantaged alumni (including rural disadvantaged ethnic minority alumni) wishing to participate in AAGF events organised by the Australian Embassy or Aus4Skills, alumni may seek the support from the Equity of Access Fund.

Recognition of Successful Grant Completion

When a grant has been successfully implemented and both the completion and final financial reports have been received and accepted by Aus4Skills, a Certificate of Grant Completion will be awarded to the respective alumnus/alumni team.

AAGF Guidelines

Full details about applying for a AAGF can be found in the AAGF Guidelines for Applicants.

The AAGF Financial Guidelines and Communications Guidelines will be applied for successful applications during the grant implementation.

List of Alumni and Projects awarded AAGF Round 1 (2017)

List of Alumni and Projects awarded AAGF Round 2 (2018)