The UK/Viet Nam Season 2023 was a British Council initiative celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries and 30 years of the British Council’s presence in Viet Nam. It took place during 2023 with the project-based activity mostly concentrated in the second half of the calendar year.
It was the first Season to include all three strands of the British Council’s work: Arts and Culture, Education and English Programmes. These were delivered under the two themes of Shared Heritage and Climate and the Environment with partners and participants encouraged to explore these topics from different perspectives and to provide new ways of considering them in terms of the relationship between the UK and Viet Nam.
It followed the model of previous British Council Seasons, based on collaborative projects between the UK and Viet Nam. An open grants programme provided support for 30 projects delivered under the three sectors: Arts, Education, and English; with further activity linked to regular programmes as well as special exchanges, delegations and one-off events.
The British Council invested £1,301,923 in the Season with £941,556.69 of this dedicated to the Season Collaboration Grants and Legacy Grants. The Collaboration Grants ranged from £12,000 to £72,000 per project, with Season Legacy Grants awarded to a select number of Arts projects.
This resulted in a wide-ranging programme of activity that reflected the dynamism, diversity and imagination of both countries. Most of the projects involved the public in some way, especially in Viet Nam, as participants and audiences engaged in courses and workshops, in co-creation, or as visitors and audiences of events.
Whilst the grants programme was mainly set-up with the UK partners as project leads (all but two were led by UK organisations), the partnerships demonstrated a significant dedication to working in partnership. Feedback from the partners in each country reflected a strong satisfaction in the way these relationships worked and the benefits they provided. These included the benefits of working in a different culture and learning from this, using the opportunity to experiment or innovate, collaborating with partners that had an alternative way of approaching a theme, as well as building on aligned vision and celebrating similarities.