Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR) grants eligibility

Your application must satisfy all the eligibility criteria to be considered by the Council.

Who is eligible to apply for a grant?

Eligibility requirements are listed in Appendix B of the Grant Guidelines.

To be eligible you must:

• complete the Grant Eligibility Checklist at Appendix B and be one of the following entity types:
  • an Australian entity with an Australian Business Number (ABN), Australian Company Number (ACN), or Indigenous Corporation Number (ICN)
  • an Australian consortium with a lead organisationⁱ
  • an Australian registered charity or not-for-profit organisation
  • an Australian local government body
  • an Australian State/Territory government body
  • a corporate Commonwealth entity
  • an Australian statutory authority
  • an Australian or permanent resident of Australia
  • a citizen or organisation from one of the following countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Panamá, Perú and Uruguay
  • well-established organisation in a Latin American country with a business purpose to advocate for Australian business, education and/or cultural interests.

For Stage 2 – Full Grant Applications

Applicants must:

• submit all the attachments listed in Section 7.1 on page 15 of the Grant Guidelines (reproduced here for ease of reference):
  • a project plan, including the scope of the proposed grant project and a timeline of activities [this information you will need to provide in the Application Form]
  • a project budget [this is the information you will need to provide in the Application Form] which accounts for both cash and in-kind contributions, and which identifies sources of funding (grantee contribution, Commonwealth funding, etc.)
  • Capability and Capacity: the following documents must be attached to your Stage Two application:
  • two independent references that address you/your organisation and the proposal
  • 1-page capability statement of you/your organisation (not mandatory)

Applications from consortia are acceptable, provided you have a lead applicant who is the main driver of the project and is eligible as per the list above.

Individuals who intend the grant to be administered by a university should apply on behalf of the university, i.e. your university is the applicant.

In addition, to be eligible you must:

• have completed all previous IRGP grant acquittals
• propose a project that is aligned with one or more of COALAR's Goals and one or more Priority Areas (if you select the Education and Research Priority Area you must also select another Priority Area)
• propose a project of one year's duration from the time of contract signing with project acquittal due within 60 days of the end of the project
• propose a project between $10,000 to $50,000
• submit a complete application in English with supporting documentation in English
• submit two independent references in English that address you/your organisation and the proposal
• if the proposed grant project includes project partners - a one-page CV per partner, if relevant, and evidence of commitment to the project (for example, a letter of support)
• if you are applying on behalf of a university, a letter of support from your Research Office
• be willing to provide child protection guidelines for your project if it involves people under the age of 18 years.

Who is not eligible to apply for a grant?

You are not eligible to apply, and your application will therefore not be considered, if you are:

• an organisation, or your project partner is an organisation, included on the National Redress Scheme's list of 'Institutions that have not joined or signified their intent to join the Scheme'ⁱⁱ
• not an entity type as listed in Appendix B.
• a representative of a government or government ministry in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Panamá, Perú or Uruguay
• an unincorporated association
• a previous applicant who has failed to provide a full and proper acquittal of an earlier International Relations Grant Program grant.

What can the grant money be used for?

Grant funds can only be spent on eligible grant activities, which will be defined in the grant details of your grant agreement.

In addition, applications are required to align with one or more of COALAR's strategic goals and one or more strategic priority areas, as outlined in Section 2.1 of the Grant Guidelines.

Applicants intending to carry out activities focussed on scientific exchange or research should become familiar with Australia's export control regimes as appropriate. You should refer, for example, to the Defence and Strategic Goods List 2021 and the Department of Defence Exporting controls for further information, including on the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Act 2024 (Cth). You should also refer to guidelines to counter foreign interference in the Australian university sector.

You can only use the grant funds to pay for costs detailed in your budget and grant agreement, including:

Travel

• Travel, including economy flights, modest accommodation costs (three or four-star hotel equivalent), meals and travel allowances, other transport
  • refer to ATO Tax Determination for more detail on what constitutes 'reasonable travel and overtime meal allowance expense amounts, other transport'. Note: your application will be non-competitive if travel and accommodation expenses associated with your grant activities should exceed 50% of the total COALAR grant funds requested. This 50% is not calculated on the sum total of any cash/in-kind contributions & the COALAR grant requested.
• Travel and accommodation for attendance at conferences or meetings, participation in fieldwork, or sporting or other events, will not be considered eligible unless it is directly related to achieving the grant project outcomes described by you. Such activities are scrutinised by the COALAR Board and must be of direct relevance to COALAR's objectives.
• Conference or meeting attendance will only be considered when a substantial program of your proposed grant activity exists in the sidelines or around the conference, and attendance will significantly contribute to the proposed grant project. A strong argument for the selection of applicant(s) to attend the conference or meeting needs to be provided.

Other

• Advertising and promotion, graphic design, photography, social media, video and printed material related to the grant project.
• Production costs, including freight, artists' and support staff wages and/or fees directly related to the grant project (business-as-usual wages or fees will not be supported).
• Employee labour costs related to delivering the core elements of the grant project (business-as-usual labour costs will not be supported).
• One principal speaker on the subject of the grant project which is of direct relevance to the grant opportunity.
• Venue hire and catering.
• Costs related to studies, research or surveys aligned to grant project outcomes.
• Costs relating to auspices services, project administration or coordination (e.g. temporary engagement of a coordinator) may be considered, capped at 5% of the total grant value.

For activities delivered in Australia, applicants are encouraged to consider the use of an Indigenous supplier, if they intend to subcontract any of the services above. A directory of registered Indigenous businesses is available at Supply Nation website.

You can only spend grant funds on eligible grant activities and within the start and end dates, as defined in the grant details in your grant agreement.

You should allow for the exchange fees in your project budget. You are responsible for any financial differences that may occur from the time of the application submission to when the project takes place, due to fluctuations in the exchange rate. Bank remittance fees are to be covered by the grantee.

What can the grant money not be used for?

You cannot use the grant for the following:

• capital expenditure, including purchase of real estate and vehicles
• purchase of equipment (for example, musical instruments, computers, videos, photographic or printing equipment)
• the covering of retrospective costs or recurrent funding of activities
• activities assessed by the COALAR Board as commercially viable in their own right
• activities which will provide commercial advantage to the applicant or third parties (e.g. promotion of the applicant's own business; funding of competitive intelligence, business development or service delivery activities for profit generation)
• crowd funding, seed funding, investment or early-stage business establishment
• costs incurred in the preparation of a grant application, acquittal or related documentation
• subsidy of general ongoing administration of an organisation such as electricity, phone, rent, salaries (including for research assistants or administrative staff), honorariums or administrative charges levied by the applicant's organisation
• activities for which other Commonwealth, State, Territory or Local Government bodies have primary responsibility (eg academic research, assistance to business, development assistance projects)
  • academic research funded by entities such as the Australian Research Council, or other grants available for academic research on Grant Connect
  • assistance to businesses that is available and funded by Austrade, or other grants available for business on Grant Connect
  • development assistance/aid related projects and activities (these are funded by the DFAT's Direct Aid Program and other agencies)
• activities undertaken by primary or high schools, including study tours, where travel by a significant number of students is the principal element of the proposal,
• scholarships to individual students
• completed projects.

COALAR does not generally fund travel and accommodation for attendance at conferences or meetings, participation in fieldwork or sporting or other events, unless they are directly related to achieving the project outcomes described by you. Such activities are considered and scrutinised by the COALAR Board and must be of direct relevance to its objectives.

For conference or meeting attendance to be considered, a substantial program should exist at the sidelines or around the conference and there should also be a strong argument for the selection of applicant(s).