Visegrad Scholarships for Graduate Programs 2017

About

Visegrad scholarships support Masters and post-Masters (PhD/postdoc) studies/research stays at higher-education institutions in the V4 region, as well as in the Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership countries.

Eligible applicants (Incoming scheme)

Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine

Applicants from these countries can apply for up to 4 semesters (MA level) or 2 semester (PhD/postdoc) at higher-education institutions in V4 countries.

Eligible applicants (Outgoing/Intra-V4 schemes):

Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia

Applicants from V4 countries can apply for 1 or 2 semesters at higher-education institutions in V4 countries (Intra-Visegrad scheme), and in Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership countries (Outgoing scheme).

Key details

• min. study period is 1 semester, max. 2 semesters, or 4 semesters—only within Incoming MA-level scholarships
• having concluded at least 4 university semesters when applying, 6 semesters (equivalent of BA degree program) when starting the scholarship
• spending the entire scholarship period at the host institution
• program not suitable for joint programs (dou­ble- or multiple-degree)

Support

• €2,300/semester for the scholar + €1,500/semester for the host
• possibility to apply for a separate travel grant, if residing further than 1,500 km from the host

Required documents

All com­pul­sory annexes must be pre­pared in English deliv­ered to the Fund along with the appli­ca­tion form; uncer­ti­fied copies of the orig­i­nal doc­u­ments (faxed or scanned doc­u­ments, e-mails, print­outs) or doc­u­ments sent sep­a­rately can­not be accepted.

Fail­ure to sub­mit the required doc­u­ments by the dead­line will result in exclud­ing the appli­ca­tion from the selec­tion procedure.

Please make sure you have pre­pared ahead the fol­low­ing annexes to the appli­ca­tion form (they need to be deliv­ered to the fund with the signed print­out of the sub­mit­ted appli­ca­tion form):

1. Certified translation of a diploma (Master’s or the highest obtained)

In the event the applicant has not finished his/her Master’s studies, he/she shall submit a certificate stating current year of study at present university and the expected date of obtaining his/her next academic diploma, issued by the present university. Please note: Notarized copies of official translations of a diploma (issued by sworn translators) or simple copies of the official English version of the diploma issued by the university will be accepted. If applying for the Master’s (MA) Scholarship, an up-to-date transcript of academic records covering the entire university studies is also required.

2. Original acceptance letter from the host university/institution

If the applicant is applying for courses that require admission tests or a personal interview (results of which will be known only after the deadline), the applicant submits a proof of his/her application for the studies or a preliminary acceptance letter. The actual acceptance letter shall be submitted before the signing of the contract with the fund, by the end of July of the respective year at the latest. The letter of acceptance cannot be older than 3 months when submitting the application and needs to include the following:

• name of the applicant
• working title of the project/study program
• language of instruction/communication
• type of study/research (full-time)
• planned dates of the project/study
• signature and a stamp of the statutory representative (or of the statutory representative of the international studies department of the host institution)

3. Original working plan of the study/research period

If the applicant applied for courses that require admission tests or a personal interview (results of which will be known only after the deadline), the applicant submits a draft of the working plan. In such case, the working plan accepted by the host university/institute shall be submitted before the signing of the contract with the fund, by the end of July of the respective year at the latest. If the applicant is applying for the Master’s scholarship (MA), he/she shall submit a list of courses that he/she plans to attend  and state the length of these courses and their credit value (a minimum of 30 ECTS credits per semester).

Note: The working plan should be a properly written program—a detailed study pro­gram referring to at least one professor responsible for the study program. Applicants for a Post-Master’s scholarship shall submit a summary of the proposed research.

The working plan must be accepted by the host university/institution and cannot be older than 3 months when submitting the application. Please note that you need to submit both the letter of acceptance and the working plan approved by the host institution before the deadline. When evaluating the application, the selection committee considers the working plan but also the fact whether the host university can accept the applicant (and under what conditions).

The only exception regarding the working plan is given to those who apply for courses/studies where they have to pass a personal interview or admission tests before they are accepted. In that case, they, too, have to submit at least a draft of the working plan (to be later approved by the host institution).

4. Recommendation letter (only for Post-Master’s level)

If applying for a Post-Master’s scholarship (PhD), a letter of recommendation from one’s home/present university/institution is required which indicates that the respective supervisor at the home/present institution agrees with the proposed stay abroad.

On-line appli­ca­tion form

Applying for the Visegrad Scholarship Program is pos­si­ble only through the on-line appli­ca­tion sys­tem. The sys­tem opens approx­i­mately 2 months prior to the dead­line, usu­ally at the begin­ning of December. Once you reg­is­ter on-line, you are kindly asked to remem­ber the ID (the appli­ca­tion num­ber) since it will be used in all future com­mu­ni­ca­tion with you, and a pass­word which will enable you to access your appli­ca­tion form in the future.

Note: Make sure you fill out all the required fields and upload all requested doc­u­ments (for exam­ple, bank details are not required when sub­mit­ting and can be edited later). The rec­om­mended file for­mat of the uploaded doc­u­ments is PDF (if a doc­u­ment has more than a sin­gle page please con­vert it into a multi-page PDF file). Also, JPG or GIF can be accepted.

Travel grant

Applicants whose uni­ver­sity or employer (at the time of apply­ing) is fur­ther than 1,500 km from the selected host university/institute (at the time of apply­ing) are eli­gi­ble for a lump-sum travel grant. Travel grants are allo­cated on a com­pet­i­tive basis and can­not be guar­an­teed to any appli­cant. Applying for travel grants is part of the on-line appli­ca­tion form.

Content and objec­tive of the study/research

If apply­ing for a Master’s schol­ar­ship, the con­tent and objec­tive of the study should con­sist of the applicant’s per­son­al­ized study sum­mary. Please do not copy-paste infor­ma­tion from the host university’s web­site or other PR materials.

Submitting the application

Submit your appli­ca­tion on-line. Then print your appli­ca­tion form directly from the on-line sys­tem (using the ‘Print’ but­ton), sign it and send it to us together with the com­pul­sory annexes (please note that we require orig­i­nal doc­u­ments; copies can­not be accepted) by the dead­line. The appli­ca­tion can be either deliv­ered per­son­ally to the fund by the dead­line date or sent by post and post­marked with the dead­line date as the lat­est pos­si­ble. (No doc­u­ment post­marked after January 31 can be accepted.)

Note: Please be informed that hard-copy ver­sions of the appli­ca­tion form printed out prior to their sub­mis­sion in the sys­tem are invalid.

Signed hard-copy ver­sions of the appli­ca­tion form along with all rel­e­vant annexes can be either brought per­son­ally to the fund by 16:30 CET on the dead­line date or sent by post if post­marked with the dead­line date as the latest.

Deadline for elec­tronic sub­mis­sion of schol­ar­ship appli­ca­tions is 11:59:59 a.m. (noon) CET on January 31.

Announcing the results of the selec­tion process—Travel documents

If you are listed among the approved schol­ars, please check the valid­ity of your pass­port and make sure it is valid until the end of the schol­ar­ship period. In the event that the valid­ity of your travel doc­u­ment expires before/during the schol­ar­ship period, please apply for a new pass­port and inform us of this fact. You will be requested to pro­vide us with the new details (pass­port num­ber, (new) spelling of your name, etc.) before the con­tract and the con­fir­ma­tion of the fund’s sup­port is issued and sent to you.

To APPLY ONLINE click "Further official information" below. 

This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:

http://visegradfund.org/scholarships/visegrad-scholarship-program-eap/