ASEAN-Australia Centre Grants Program

The ASEAN-Australia Centre’s (AAC) Grants Program focuses on strengthening business, education, cultural, and community connections between Australia and Southeast Asia.

The Centre is supporting the Australian Government’s commitment to deepen engagement with Southeast Asia and deliver on recommendations from Invested: Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040.

Applications will be open across three priority areas:

• Stream 1 - Creative industry initiatives to facilitate professional and creative exchanges, residencies and collaborations between Australia and the region, including, but not limited to, Australian artists with Southeast Asian heritage, and First Nations artists.
• Stream 2 - Projects that involve Australians of Southeast Asian heritage to advance engagement with Southeast Asia and increase awareness of the value diaspora brings to this engagement, including projects that promote and support engagement in business, higher education, science, sport and civil society. 
• Stream 3 - Research (by private or public institutions) aimed at supporting Australian companies’ access to and understanding of trade and investment opportunities in Southeast Asia with a particular focus on projects that: 
  • investigate new strategies for Australian companies to engage with, export to and invest in Southeast Asia,
  • disseminate case studies or research on resilient supply chains, trade diversification, skills exchange, or emerging sectors where Australia and Southeast Asia can collaborate for mutual benefit and
  • draw on public and private data sources to measure and analyse the position of Australian companies in the region (including relative to likeminded countries), and present those findings publicly.   

This scheme's UQ Indirect Costs rate is 0%, as noted in the UQ Indirect Costs Variation Register.

Global Partnerships supports the Global Engagement Framework. The Global Strategy and Partnerships (GSP) team welcomes enquiries to identify potential partners in the Southeast Asia region.

Learn more about the grants, eligibility requirements and the application process:

Overview

Funding

• Applicants can apply for a grant between A$50,000 and A$200,000 per annum. The Centre will consider multi-year grants of the same amounts (between a minimum of A$50,000 and a maximum of A$200,000 per year) for up to two years (i.e. between A$100,000 and A$400,000 over two years).
• Co-contributions from other parties strengthen an application and are encouraged.
• Grants cannot be used for your organisation's fixed or recurrent expenditure, including subsidies of general ongoing administration of an organisation such as electricity, phone, rent, and salaries (including for research assistants or administrative staff). For further details, please refer to the grant guidelines.

Eligibility

Eligibility and important information relating to the grant can be found in the guidelines.

How to apply

All applications must be submitted electronically by the applicant using DFAT's SmartyGrants online application form by 6 November 2025.

The GSP team will provide a letter of support template, application cover sheet template to be completed by the applicant, brief UQ capacity statement and information on UQ's engagement in the country of your application upon request. See resources available under 'Key resources'. 

Please allow 7 working days for the GSP team to process the letter of support. Letter of support will be issued after the signed cover sheet is received by the GSP team.