The Board of Think City will be assessing each application based on the following criteria:

• Impact factor – Projects must demonstrate their positive impact on one of the following areas – documentation, infrastructural upgrade, public-private cooperation and thought leadership. The grants committee can rate the impact on a scale of 1 to 5 (one being the least and 5 being the most) and this can be decided upon the project’s expected outcome.
  
  
• Partnerships – As the George Town Grants Programme’s success will be dependent upon gaining as wide participation as possible, it is important projects make provisions for ethnically-mixed partnerships. Rating can be made on a scale of 1 to 5 (one being the least and 5 being the most). This can be measured based upon the working partners of each project.
  
  
• Thought leadership – New ways of thinking will be crucial to helping Penang move into the knowledge economy. As such, projects should be innovative and must provide new ways of thinking about existing problems or open up new areas of economic and social activity. This can be measured based on each project’s methodology; how the project manager hopes to implement their projects.
  
  
• Sustainability – whilst some projects are one-off, there might be others that have a longer life-span. These are projects that fall into the category of a “continuing grant”. The committee can rate the sustainability of such longer term projects based on a 1 to 5 scale. The basis of this rating will be the project’s time-table, partnerships and financial viability.
  
  
• Equity – not all projects can help develop a more equitable society but projects that have this in mind should be given priority. The committee can rate based on the public component of each project. The wider the public benefit, the more contribution to social and economic equity.