Regional Investment Fund for Secondary Vocational Education (Regionaal Investeringsfonds mbo, RIF)

Regionaal Investeringsfonds mbo (RIF) is OCW's co-investment programme for durable public-private partnerships in Dutch vocational education, administered by DUS-I. It sits squarely in the MBO system and is built around institutions, employers, and regional labour-market partners rather than individual applicants. Awards run from €250,000 to €2.5 million over four to five years, with a 33 to 67 percent co-financing requirement. Every consortium must include at least one publicly funded MBO institution and one labour-market organisation; businesses can join, but they do not lead. The programme also applies in the Caribbean Netherlands, and existing partnerships must show prior RIF experience, retain at least half of the original participants, or have a research-skills focus. RIF is strongest where an education provider can show a long-lived regional partnership and a practical skills agenda. The programme rewards institutional maturity, shared delivery capacity, and a budget that already has meaningful local backing, so applicants tend to succeed when they can show that the partnership will outlast the subsidy period.

Each grant below is a distinct funding opportunity with its own eligibility, scope, and deliverables.