The New Colombo Plan (NCP) is an initiative of the Australian Government that aims to build Australia’s relationships in the Indo-Pacific by supporting Australian undergraduates to undertake study and internships in the region.
Launched in 2014 and administered by DFAT, the NCP supports around 10,000 students, including around 140 scholars, each year to part of their studies in one or more of 40 eligible countries in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Strategic Objective of the NCP is to strengthen Australia’s regional standing by building a diverse cohort of Australian alumni with deeper Indo-Pacific knowledge, capability and connections.
The intended outcomes of the NCP are:
- increase the number and diversity of Australian university undergraduates with Indo-Pacific capability
- deepen people-to-people and institutional relationships between Australia and the Indo-Pacific region, and
- students and alumni connected with leaders in government, business and civil society in the Indo-Pacific
The NCP includes mobility grants for Australian universities to offer short and longer-term study and internship opportunities overseas, and prestigious scholarships for high-performing students to undertake up to one year of exchange at a university in the Indo-Pacific plus optional language training and internships.
