Merger Subsidy

Previously, CUOS offered the Formation Grant International Organization (OIS), intended to encourage international students to organise themselves into new associations. Partly as a result of this, the number of student organisations in Groningen has increased significantly in recent years.

In practice, however, many organisations are finding it difficult to recruit new board members to continue their day-to-day activities. Establishing even more associations is likely to exacerbate this problem.

Larger organisations appear to operate more efficiently: they have relatively fewer administrative burdens, which creates more space for social and substantive activities.

For these reasons, the OIS has been converted to the Merger Subsidy with effect from the 2025–2026 academic year. This subsidy focuses on supporting collaborations between existing student organisations by partially reimbursing the costs associated with a merger.

An application for this grant can be submitted throughout the year. Please keep in mind that the Board of CUOS is less available during the months of July and August, so if possible, send in your application before that.

Application procedure

The Formation Grant International Organizations can be requested all year long, this means that there is no deadline for this. The maximum amount of money that can be requested is €1000 per association. An application for Formation Grant International Organizations can be done by filling in the application form for Formation Grant International Organizations.

This form has to be filled in completely. Besides the form, several extra documents have to be handed in.

Necessary documents:

• (Concept) Activity plan, with the document name: “1. Activities [name organisation]”. The activities have to contribute to the diversity of the activities available for student; There has to be support for the activities; The activities need to fit within the RUG policies and the activities need to contribute to the academic education of the participants. Please use form D.
• (Concept) Budget, with the document name: “2. Budget [name organisation]”
• (Concept) Articles of Association, with the document name: “3. Statutes [name organisation]”
• Registration at the Chamber of Commerce (when already available), with the document name: “4. Extract KvK [name organisation]. To be eligible for the grant, an organisation has to be registrered at the KvK (Dutch Chamber of Commerce) or planning to do this. Please send an up-to-date version.
• A membership list, with the document name: “5. Members [name organisation]”. An organisation is only eligible for Internationalisation Grant A when the organisation has a minimum of 25 full and paying members that are registrered at the University of Groningen or the Hanzehogeschool Groningen. The membership list needs to contain the full names and student numbers of the members and needs to be handed in as an Excel-file. Please use Form L.

Application form and other necessary forms

Decisions Formation Grant International Organizations

Within 6 weeks after receiving the subsidy, a preliminary decision will be taken. You will be notified about this.

After at most 8 weeks after finishing the activity/project you requested you will have to send in a detailed evaluation and financial justification to CUOS. The evaluation and the finanical justification need to contain at least the following:

1. a justification of the spending of the money;
2. a listing of and an explanation for all activities;
3. an overview of the amount of participants per activity.