Deadline: 19 April 2019

Aus4Innovation is seeking applications for its Innovation Partnership Grants with an aim to provide targeted funds to scale already tested activities that address emerging challenges or opportunities in any sector of Vietnam’s innovation system.

Aus4Innovation aims to fund technologies or activities with:

• an existing proof of concept,
• an articulated market segment or path to impact, and
• an existing relationship between an Australian and a Vietnamese entity.

Aus4Innovation is a flagship four year, AUD 10 million partnership program, running from 2018 to 2022 between Vietnam and Australia. The program is funded by the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the InnovationXchange (IXC), with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam to be the key partner.

Grant Round One

The first round of grants will focus on developing partnerships between organisations in Australia and Vietnam. Project topics are not constrained, but those aligned with the outcomes of other Aus4Innovation work streams will be favourably considered. Topics identified to date by the draft report of Work Stream 1 – Foresighting the Digital Future for Vietnam are described below. These possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Adoption of digital technology into small enterprise
• Solutions for reducing gender and rural-based digital divides
• High value goods: quality, individualisation, equality, humanity and provenance
• Increasing labour productivity, including technology-based skills for men and women fit for Industry 4.0
• Agriculture 4.0: productivity, export market access, and food provenance
• Manufacturing 4.0: data, cyber-physical-biological systems, AI, and additive manufacturing
• Smarter, healthier and safer cities
• Cyber security and privacy in the 4th Industrial Revolution

Funding Information

• Individual grants will be between AUD 100,000 and AUD 1 million and the total amount of funding in two rounds is AUD 3 million.
• It is expected that activities will be completed within 12 months from the time of the signing the Grant.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applications will be accepted from an existing partnership that includes at least one Vietnamese and one Australian organisation.
• The Vietnam-Australia partnership may include additional partners.
• Preferred eligible Australian organisations include universities, research institutes, public sector agencies or civil society organisations. Australian for-profit companies may not be lead partners in Round 1. Eligible Vietnamese organisations include any private, public sector, or civil society organisation operating in Vietnam.
• An indication of the nature and duration of the partnership is requested. Organisations that form a partnership for the purpose of applying for grants under this mechanism are considered not eligible.
• Organisations submitting an application must have no reason preventing them from operating in Vietnam.
• To avoid conflict of interest, CSIRO, the managing agency for this program, and its employees are ineligible to apply.
• Activities that have already received funding from other sources will also be considered ineligible when applying for this grant as a duplicate funding source.
• Partnerships with women in lead and senior research and/or scientific roles encouraged to apply.

How to Apply

Expressions of interest for round one can be submitted online via the given website.

For more information, please visit https://research.csiro.au/aus4innovation/apply/