Grants to boost girls' and women's participation in STEM and entrepreneurship

You are not eligible to apply if you are:

• an individual
• a partnership
• a primary or secondary school (however, primary and secondary schools may be part of a joint application if the lead applicant is eligible)
• an unincorporated association
• a Commonwealth, state and local government agency or body (including government business enterprises other than eligible PFROs, PFRAs, VET providers and TAFE institutions)
• a trust (however, an incorporated trustee may apply on behalf of a trust).

To be eligible your project must:

• not have been previously funded through the WISE program, or be the same as other previously funded WISE projects
• address at least one focus area: information technology; engineering; intersectionality or entrepreneurship
• be aimed at addressing discrimination against, or inequality for, girls and women in STEM and/or entrepreneurship
• have at least $5,000 in total eligible expenditure
• have a COVID-19 contingency plan that does not involve an increase in grant amount requested

For full details on eligible activities and expenditure, refer to the grant opportunity guidelines.

If your grant application is successful, we will recommend that you evaluate your project using the Australian Government Women in STEM Ambassador’s National Evaluation Guide.

This Guide will help you plan, design and execute your evaluation.

We first review your application against the eligibility criteria. If eligible, we will then assess it against the assessment criteria.

A selection committee will assess your application against the assessment criteria. They will compare your application to other eligible applications in a funding round before recommending which projects to fund.

The program delegate decides which grants to approve taking into account the recommendations of the committee and available grant funds.

For more information on how we assess your application please refer to section 8 of the grant opportunity guidelines.

We will assess your application based on the weighting given to each critieria:

• Assessment criterion 1: Benefit to girls’ and/or women’s participation in STEM and/or entrepreneurship (50 points).
• Assessment criterion 2: Capacity and capability to deliver the project (30 points).
• Assessment criterion 3: Impact of the grant funding on your project (20 points).

For full details of the assessment criteria please refer to the grant opportunity guidelines.

If your application is successful, you’ll receive a written offer. If you are unsuccessful, we’ll notify you in writing and give you the chance to discuss the outcome with us.

Successful applicants must enter into a legally binding grant agreement with the Commonwealth. The grant agreement will specify the reporting requirements, payment schedule and milestones necessary to receive payments.

For grants of up to $50,000 we’ll pay 100 per cent of the grant on execution of the grant agreement. You’ll be required to report how you spent the grant funds at the completion of the project.

For grants over $50,000 we will make an initial payment on execution of the grant agreement. We will make subsequent payments as you achieve milestones, e.g. in arrears, based on your actual eligible expenditure. Payments are subject to satisfactory progress on the project.

We set aside 10 per cent of the total grant funding for the final payment.

Payments will be made by direct credit into a nominated bank account.