UM Global Studies Scholarship

All candidates must meet the following requirements:

• You hold the nationality of a country in the Global South, here defined as countries in Africa, Asia (including the Middle-East), Latin-America and the Caribbean based on the definition of the OECD in column 1; least developed, column 2;low income , column 3 lower middle-income or Venezuela  and meet the requirements for obtaining an entry visa and residence permit for the Netherlands

   

• You do not hold a double nationality from a country in the Global North
• You have never participated in a degree-seeking higher education programme in the Netherlands. Students who have completed exchange programmes in the Netherlands are welcome to apply
• You are not older than 35 years of age on 1 September 2024
• You agree to become an active Global Studies and UM ambassador during and after your studies, by committing to share your experiences during at least one (information) session for students and/or other stakeholders
• You have have been (conditionally) admitted to the Global Studies study programme

• 36 months for the bachelor's programme in Global Studies

*This amount is subject to change for academic year 2025-2026

Step 1: Register for the Global Studies programme at Maastricht University
For further details on how to register for a bachelor programme at UM, please see the website of Global Studies. Once you have submitted your application via Studielink, you will receive a student ID number for UM. You will need a student number in order to complete and submit the Scholarship Application Form.

• Please note: you can apply for the bachelor programme at UM and the scholarship simultaneously. However, you must be conditionally approved for admission to the bachelor programme in order to be awarded a scholarship.
• Please note: if you have to pay a handling fee as part of the programme’s admissions procedure, the UM International Services Desk does not cover handling fees. You are responsible for paying any handling fee your programme may require by 1 March 2024. To check whether the programme requires the payment of a handling fee, please check here.

Step 2: Please fill in the application form, you need to log in with your UM account
You can find the application form here (applications are closed). Upload the following documents in .doc, .docx or PDF format, and submit your application. Please note that you will only be able to submit your application once, so please ensure that all of your documents and referee contact details are up-to-date. 

• Curriculum Vitae
  Your CV should be up-to-date; contain relevant information about your education and (job) experience; include proven previous extracurricular engagement with your previous (academic) organisation/high school and active citizenship in your community; and should not be longer than two A4 pages.
• Letter of motivation
  Please use the template for the motivation letter. This template will focus on your motivation for the scholarship.
• Proof of academic excellence
  Continuous good to excellent results during your prior (high school) education programmes, as demonstrated by your latest grade transcript.
• Personal statement of financial needs
  Please explain why you would benefit from being awarded a scholarship and describe your personal circumstances such as financial difficulty, sole parent/caretaking responsibilities, medical condition, disability, refugee status, et cetera.
• A reference letter
  We have prepared scholarship reference letter guidelines; please print these out or forward them to your referee, as they will help your referee to write a good reference letter on your behalf. Please note that the referee must be a (former) professor, teacher, principal, college counsellor, lecturer, or employer, and not a family member. Recommendation letters should be dated and written no earlier than 1 February 2023. Letters that do not adhere to the guidelines are not taken into account, which means your application is incomplete. You need to upload the reference letter, this cannot be done by your referee. We trust you in this and we can check your reference
• The contact details of one referee
  Please note that we might check the authenticity of your referee by contacting your referee. Therefore, ensure that you take the following steps when choosing a referee and submitting their details:
  - Relationship to applicant; indicate your referee’s connection to you. Is this your (former) professor, teacher, principal, college counsellor, lecturer, or employer? Please remember that family members may not function as referees.
  - Work telephone number of your referee; be sure to include the applicable country calling code.
  - Work or institutional email address of your referee. Letters referencing only a personal email address will be rejected, unless a valid reason is provided.

Please note that you will only be able to submit your application once, so please ensure that all of your documents and referee contact details are up-to-date.

Step 1: The UM International Services Desk checks if all applications are complete after 1 March 2024.

Step 2: The UM Scholarship Office forwards your application to the Global Studies admission office.

Step 3: The Global Studies admission office - in cooperation with the respective programme coordinator(s) - ranks your application based on the UM scholarship selection criteria and proposes a top-5 to the Global Studies Scholarship selection committee in April 2024.

Step 4: The Global Studies Scholarship selection committee (composed of the Global Studies academic programme coordinator, a representative of the UM Scholarship Office, the UM Diversity & Inclusivity Office and UM Academic Affairs) invites the top-5 applicants for an online interview, following which a decision is taken. In case you are not selected, you will be added to a reserve list in case the selected candidate(s) decline(s) the scholarship. 

Step 5: The UM International Services Desk will inform all candidates of their application status in May 2024. Your status will be selected, waitlisted or rejected by the beginning of June 2024 at the latest. Waitlisted application statuses will be changed to selected or rejected by June 2024. Scholarship awardees will receive more information about the UM Pre-Academic Training programme and arrival in Maastricht upon receiving their award letters. The UM Pre-Academic Training is a mandatory component of the UM Global Studies Scholarship programme. The Pre-Academic Training takes place in August 2024.

Step 6: You must sign and return the award letter to the UM International Services Desk to accept the scholarship.