Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals

Application closed

The online application portal for the SI Scholarships for Global Professionals academic year 2023/2024 is closed.

Overview What's included Criteria How to apply FAQ

Overview

What is SI Scholarship for Global Professionals?

The SI Scholarship for Global Professionals aims to develop future global leaders that will contribute to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to sustainable development. The applicants should have a clear idea of how their education will contribute to the sustainable development of their home countries and regions. In 2023 the Swedish Institute will grant about 250 scholarships for master’s degree studies in Sweden.

The scholarship is intended for full-time, one- or two-year master’s programme, and is funded by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The Swedish Institute open the call for applications once every year for master’s studies beginning in the autumn semester. In order to have a successful application, make sure to be eligible, complete all steps of the process, and that you have the documentation required to finalise your application in time. Please read through the following pages carefully.

What's included

What you get as a scholarship recipient:

Full tuition fee coverage. The fee is paid directly by SI to your Swedish university in the beginning of each semester.
A monthly payment of SEK 11,000 to cover your living expenses throughout the study period.
Insurance against illness and accident.
Travel Grant. This is a one-time payment and does not apply for students already living in Sweden.
- For scholars from Bangladesh, Bolivia; Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia or Zimbabwe – the scholarship includes a travel grant of SEK 15,000 for the entire study period.
- For scholars from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, the scholarship includes a travel grant of SEK 11,000 for the entire study period.
Membership of the SI Network for Future Global Professionals (NFGP) – a platform to help you grow professionally and build a network while in Sweden.
After your scholarship period has ended, you become a member of the SI Alumni Network. As a member, you get a unique opportunity for continued networking and professional development.

The scholarship does not:

Provide additional grants for family members.
Cover the application fee to University Admissions.
Allow changes to the study programme. We are only able to support you through the awarded master’s programme.
Allow extensions or changes to the awarded scholarship period.

Criteria

Country of citizenship

You must be a citizen of a country that is eligible for SI scholarships. However, you do not need to reside in the country at the time of the application.

University admissions

You must be liable to pay tuition fees to Swedish universities, have followed the steps of University Admissions and be admitted to one of the eligible master's programmes by 30 of March 2023.

Previous experience

You must have a minimum of 3,000 hours of demonstrated work experience. In addition, you must have demonstrated leadership experience from your current or previous employer, or from civil society engagement.

Master's programmes

The master's programmes you apply for must be eligible for SI scholarships. We give priority to programmes within certain subject areas, depending on your country of citizenship.

Your are not eligible if…

Regardless of all the eligibility criteria listed above, you are not eligible for the SI Scholarships for Global Professionals if you:

have already resided in Sweden for cumulatively two years or more, prior to the scholarship period (starting August 2023);
have previously been awarded a Swedish Institute scholarship for master’s level studies or research at a Swedish university/university college. Previous participants of the SI Summer Academy for Young Professionals (SAYP), and students who have attended SI summer courses in the Swedish language or the Swedish Institute Summer University (SISU) may still apply;
already hold a degree from a Swedish university/university college;
are currently enrolled in a study programme at a Swedish university/university college;
have a Swedish or EU/EEA citizenship*, a Swedish permanent residence permit or a temporary work- and residence permit based on work or on family ties with a citizen of Sweden/EU/EEA country who has a temporary or permanent right of residence in Sweden; or
have dual citizenship in countries not listed on the DAC list of ODA recipients 2022-2023.

*Exception: students with dual citizenship in Romania may apply for a scholarship even though they are EU citizens, and must state the citizenship that is eligible for the scholarship when applying to both SI as well as University Admissions.

Country of Citizenship

You must be a citizen of one of the eligible countries. However, you do not need to reside in the country at the time of the application. If your country of citizenship is not listed below, we suggest that you look for other scholarship opportunities.

Citizens of the following countries are eligible to apply to the SI Scholarship for Global Professionals:

Armenia; Azerbaijan; Bangladesh; Bolivia; Belarus; Brazil; Cambodia; Cameroon; Colombia; Ecuador; Egypt; Ethiopia; Gambia; Georgia; Ghana; Guatemala; Honduras; Indonesia; Jordan; Kenya; Liberia; Malawi; Moldova; Morocco; Myanmar (Burma); Nepal; Nigeria; Pakistan; Peru; Philippines; Rwanda; South Africa; Sri Lanka; Sudan; Tanzania; Tunisia; Uganda; Ukraine; Vietnam; Zambia; Zimbabwe.*

*As a precautionary measure, SI has decided to pause the scholarship offer for Russian nationals applying for the SI Scholarship for Global Professionals. A reassessment will be made for the subsequent selection process in 2024/2025.

Dual Citizenship

If you have dual citizenship(s) and both are eligible for SI scholarship programme(s), you should choose only one of the citizenships when applying for SI scholarships. Applicants who apply to more than one SI scholarship using more than one citizenship, will have both applications disqualified.

Exception: students with dual citizenship in Romania may apply for a scholarship even though they are EU citizens, but must state the citizenship that is eligible for the scholarship when applying to both SI as well as University Admissions.

Eligible programmes

About 700 master’s programmes taught in English starting in the autumn semester 2023 are eligible for an SI scholarship. It is up to you to motivate in your scholarship application if/how your chosen programmes are related to the prioritised subject areas. You’ll find the list of eligible master programmes for the SISGP call for application academic year 2023/2024 here.

For applicants from Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia or Zimbabwe – the greatest priority will be given to master’s studies with an emphasis on the contribution to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

For applicants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine – the greatest priority will be given to applicants who choose study programmes with an emphasis on environmental and social sustainability, innovation, responsibility in management or sustainable economic growth (listed in alphabetical order, no priority or ranking is implied).

In terms of your university application, you must…

be liable to pay tuition fees to Swedish universities. Find out if you are liable for tuition fees here. SI will receive the tuition fee status including your personal information directly from University Admissions.
have paid the application fee for master’s programmes to University Admissions by the deadline 1 February 2023. See all key dates here.
be admitted (or conditionally admitted) to one of the eligible master’s programmes on 30 March 2023. You can only be awarded a scholarship for the master’s programme you are admitted to on 30 March 2023. Master’s programmes to which you are listed as a reserve cannot be considered. If you have been admitted to another programme/programmes of lower priority, it is important that you make sure to decline reserve places on time so that your successful admissions are not deleted later on. Please check the information on how to reply to University Admissions.If you are only listed as a reserve and not admitted to any of the eligible master’s programmes*, you cannot be considered for an SI scholarship. There are no scholarships available for late admissions. Contact University Admissions directly if you have any questions about your application, tuition fees or admittance.

Previous Experience

Work Experience

To be eligible for Global Professionals, you must have had at least 3,000 hours of work experience prior to 10 February 2023 from a maximum of three organisations/companies. Valid work experience for Global Professionals includes both full-time and part-time employment, for instance as an employee, employer or freelancer. You will be required to certify the experience in your application. If you do not already have the required amount of work experience, your application will be disqualified. However, it is not required that you are employed at the time of the application.

Priority will be given to applicants with a strong professional background.

For applicants from Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia, or Zimbabwe – work experience within the fields in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will be prioritised.

For applicants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine – priority is given to strong work experience within the field related to environmental and social sustainability, innovation, responsibility in management, or sustainable economic growth, especially experience from civil society or public sector.

It will also be a merit if you can demonstrate your involvement in networks or civil society organisations outside of your regular work with a letter of reference. Read more about the required documents below.

How to calculate your employment hours

Here are two examples of how to calculate your employment hours.

Scenario 1:
Currently employed full-time, working 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year for 1 calendar year prior to 10 February 2023, and previously worked part-time as freelancer 12 hours per week for 28 weeks per year for 3 calendar years.
The calculation is (40 hours x 50 weeks x 1 year = 2,000) + (12 hours x 28 weeks x 3 years = 1,008) = 3,008 hours.
An applicant within this scenario meets the eligibility criteria for work experience required within the SI Scholarships for Global Professionals.

Scenario 2:
Owns a company as self-employed, working 10 hours per week for 35 weeks per year for 3 calendar years. The company will close down on 31 December 2022 and applicant does not have another employment.
The calculation is (10 hours x 35 weeks x 3 years) = 1,050 hours.
An applicant within this scenario fails to meet the eligibility criteria for a scholarship due to the lack of work experience hours.

Important information about work experience

You do not need to meet the work experience requirement in one period of employment, nor do you need to have been working in your current role for 3,000 hours in order to be eligible to apply. However, the accumulated 3,000 hours should not be from more than three organisations/companies.
If you have held more than one position of employment at the same time, all hours for the respective positions can be used to meet the requirement for work experience.
If you are in a current employment, it is not a requirement of the Global Professionals that you resign from your position.
You are advised to discuss your application with your employer. It is also your responsibility to ensure that you will be granted a leave of absence from your work or will be released in time, in case you are selected for a scholarship. SI will not intervene in this.
You must be able to provide certification for the 3,000 hours of work experience by using our forms. For more information please see the application procedure and key dates.
You can only include working hours obtained prior to 10 February 2023 in your calculation.

Leadership Experience

In addition to your work experience, you must be able to demonstrate your previous leadership experience. The experience may be demonstrated through for instance previous work experience or involvement in civil society organisations or networks.

Leadership experience involves the experience to lead other colleagues/organisations, mandate to influence the development strategy for the organisation you work at, allocate tasks to colleagues and familiarity with decision-making processes.

The leadership experience has no requirement regarding a minimum number of hours. However, priority will be given to applicants with demonstrated strong and relevant leadership experience from employment.

Required documents

We will not consider any other documents than the required ones. You have to use SI’s provided forms, and you must complete your application in English. Otherwise, your application will not be considered further.

A complete application consists of:

CV (we only accept the SI-template)
Letters of reference (we only accept the SI-template)
Valid and completed proof of work and leadership experience (we only accept the SI-template)
Copy of your valid passport/National ID card
Motivation (will be asked of you in the application portal)

Note! Your application will be disqualified if any of the above is missing.

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

You must use SI’s form for CV 2023/2024 and the CV should not exceed three pages. It’s up to you to decide which of your previous experiences are relevant for your application. Additional pages will not be considered during the evaluation.

Letters of reference

You must use SI’s form for the letter of reference 2023/2024. All letters of reference must be signed by the referee and stamped with an official stamp of the referred organisation or notary office. The letters should be typed, then printed, signed, stamped and uploaded as a single PDF-file. You can find more information in the instruction in the form and our FAQ.

Two different letters of reference are mandatory.
One of the letters must be based on work experience (mandatory). It is also a merit if the second letter of reference is based on your involvement in networks or civil society organisations outside of your regular work.

Proof of work and leadership experience

You must use SI’s form for proof of work and leadership experience 2023/2024. The work and leadership form should be signed by the referee and stamped with an official stamp of the referred organisation or a notary office. The form(s) should be typed, then printed, signed, stamped, and uploaded as a single PDF-file. You can find more information in the instruction in the form and our FAQ.

Copy of your valid passport/National ID card

You must submit a copy of your valid passport/National ID card with the application. It must clearly show your personal data, including your name, citizenship and photograph. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have a copy of your passport/National ID card that is valid at the time of application. You will be asked to upload the passport copy in the online application portal.

How to apply

1. Apply for a master's programme - 17 Oct 2022 - 16 Jan 2023

Apply for up to four eligible master’s programmes at at universityadmissions.se by 16 January 2023. Note that Stockholm School of Economics have their own, separate intake and admissions process.
Once you have submitted your application for master’s programme(s) at universityadmissions.se, you will get a personal application number consisting of eight digits. Save the number as you will need it when applying to the SI Scholarship for Global Professionals. Your application will be disqualified if you type in the wrong number in the online application form. Applicants for Stockholm School of Economics will not receive such a number.
Submit your receipt of the application fee and the supporting documents required by University Admissions before the deadline on 1 February 2023. The fee is non-refundable.

You’ll find the list of eligible master programmes for the SISGP call for application academic year 2023/2024 here.

Note! If you missed the deadlines or failed to follow the application procedure at University Admissions, you will not be eligible for a scholarship.

Questions?

Do you have any questions related to University admissions the application fee or application number?

Contact University Admissions

2. Apply for a Global Professionals scholarship - 10 Feb 2023 - 28 Feb 2023

After you have completed your application to a master’s programme, you can apply for an SI scholarship. See more information about the required documents and forms under Criteria.
Submit the required documents digitally through our online application portal. The portal is open from 10 February 00:01 until 28 February 2023 14:59 CET.

Note! Due to the high volume of applications, the online application portal may be under heavy pressure at the end of the application period. We strongly urge all applicants not to wait until the last days to apply. No admission past deadline 28 February 14:59 CET is accepted as the portal will be closed.

If you have applied to several master’s programmes

You should only submit one scholarship application, regardless of how many master’s programmes you have applied for at universityadmissions.se. You can apply for SI scholarships for up to four eligible master’s programmes. Your application should have only one of each of the required documents attached, no matter how many master’s programmes you applied for.

If you have applied for master’s programme(s) to both University Admissions and Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) , you should include information about both in one scholarship application.

Data protection and integrity

The Swedish Institute (SI) is a public agency. As such, all applications received by SI are in the public domain. We use the personal information you give us to process your application. If you are granted a scholarship, we will continue to use this personal information to manage it. We deal with this information following the Swedish Principle of Public Access to Information and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Your personal information is handled by SI employees and outside experts who have signed a contract of compliance. For more information, please read SI’s privacy policy.

3. SI screening and evaluation before admissions - 1 Mar 2023 - 29 Mar 2023

Screening

After the application deadline, we carry out a screening of all applications and disqualify those that do not meet the eligibility criteria for Global Professionals. If you have failed to follow the instructions for the required documents, for example by providing an incomplete application, using the wrong forms, missing a valid stamp, etc., then your application will also be disqualified. Reasons are given in the instructions in the forms and here on the website. Therefore, you should read through all available information carefully before filling out and submitting your documents.

Evaluation before admissions

We will then go through all the eligible applications and evaluate the information provided in your applications. We give scores with particular consideration for the aim and purpose of the scholarship programme. We are looking for talented and active professionals with capability, an existing platform and ambition to contribute to international development. The quality of the application is crucial in our selection.

4. Notifications from University Admissions - 30 Mar 2023

By 30 March 2023, you will receive your notification of selection results from University Admissions. SI will receive the admission results, including your personal information directly from University Admissions. There are no scholarships available for late admissions.
Only admitted applicants to one of the eligible master’s programmes by 30 March 2023, including those who are conditionally admitted, will be considered further for an SI scholarship (read more in the next step, below).
Note! Your application will be evaluated based on the admissions results on 30 March. This means that if you were to make any changes to your original admissions results (e.g. decline an offer) your application will no longer be in the running for the SI scholarship.

If you have been conditionally admitted, you will have received information regarding what you need to do to finalise your admission. Those who are not admitted to an eligible master’s programme by this date or are only listed as reserves or are placed on the waiting list will not be considered for a Global Professionals scholarship.

Note! Please check the instructions on how to reply to University Admissions. Contact University Admissions directly if you have any questions.

5. Final evaluation and announcement of SI scholarship recipients - 31 Mar 2023 - 27 Apr 2023

Evaluation after admissions

When the admission results for master’s studies are announced at universityadmissions.se on 30 March 2023 we will make a final evaluation of the applications that are still eligible for the scholarship. SI receives a separate list of admitted students from Stockholm School of Economics (SSE).

The rigid screening and evaluation process provides us with a shortlist of the best candidates. In the final evaluation, we give priority to certain factors, therefore thoroughly read through the call for applications above, as it explains what we take into consideration.

We aim at having all genders represented as equally as possible in the final list of scholarship recipients. We also want to include as many of the eligible countries and Swedish universities as possible, provided there is a sufficient number of quality applications. We also need to stay within our budget. We may make additional adjustments in the final selection to achieve the distribution we are aiming for. However, we do not have any quotas for specific countries, fields of study, Swedish universities etcetera. The number of recipients from different countries, and to certain programmes/universities may differ from year to year, depending on the quality of the applications received.

When all of the above factors have been taken into consideration, the final selection of scholarship recipients will be completed.

Announcement of SI scholarship recipients (27 April 2023)

In the afternoon of 27 April 2023, the successful SI scholarship recipients of Global Professionals 2023/2024 are announced at si.se.

Each recipient will then receive an official scholarship offer by email between 2 – 3 May. The recipient is responsible for ensuring that the email address provided in the application is correct. The scholarship must then be accepted or declined by the deadline indicated in the offer.

Note! Due to a large number of applicants, only those who are offered a scholarship will be notified.

Closed

The online application portal for applications to the SI Scholarships for Global Professionals is closed.

Applying for SI Scholarship for Global Professionals