Who we are looking for

The scholarships for the Western Balkans and Turkey is part of the Swedish government’s international awards scheme aimed at developing global leaders. They are funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden and administered by the Swedish Institute (SI). The programmes offer a unique opportunity for future leaders to develop professionally and academically, to experience Swedish society and culture, and to build a long-lasting relationship with Sweden and with each other.

The goal is to assist the countries in the Western Balkans and Turkey to forge closer links with the European Union. Thematically the scholarship programmes focus on democracy, human rights and the rule of law, including gender equality, equal opportunities and non-discrimination, and independent media.

Priority will be given to applicants with a strong and relevant professional background and demonstrated leadership experience from civil society or public sector.

How we evaluate and select

After the application deadline, we carry out a screening of all applications and disqualify those that do not meet the eligibility criteria for the SI scholarships for the Western Balkans and Turkey. In addition, if you fail to follow the instructions for required documents, such as incomplete application, wrong form, missing valid stamp, etc., your application will be disqualified. Reasons for disqualification are given in the instructions in the forms and here on the website. Therefore, it is very important that you read through all available information carefully.

We will then evaluate all the eligible applications and take into consideration all the information provided in your applications. We will grade them according to the aim and purpose of the scholarship programme. We are looking for talented and active professionals with capability, a platform and ambition to contribute to international development. You will find more information about the kind of candidates we are looking for above. The evaluation is comprehensive and therefore you need to be outstanding in all aspects to get through the tough competition and be selected for a scholarship. We give priority to certain factors which you can read more about in the eligibility criteria section.

When the admission results for master’s studies are announced at universityadmissions.se on 3 April 2020, we will do a further evaluation of the eligible applications which have been admitted (including conditional admissions) to a Swedish university and make the final selection from them. Your scholarship application will therefore no longer be considered if you are not admitted by 3 April 2020.

The quality of the application is crucial in our selection. We compile a short list on the basis of the evaluation process described above. However, 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 sufficient number of strong applications. We also need to stay within our budget. We may therefore make an additional adjustment in the final selection process in order to achieve the distribution we are aiming for. We do not have any quotas for specific countries, fields of study, Swedish universities, etc.

The competition for SI scholarships is very high. We recommend that you also look for other scholarship opportunities from your government, from organisations in your country, or from Swedish universities.

Required documents

You should only submit the required documents listed below in your online scholarship application. We will not consider any other documents than the required ones. You must complete your applications in English. Use our forms provided below and complete them according to the instructions both below and in the forms, or else your applications will be disqualified. Kindly note the length limitation for your answers and the documents.

Information about required documents will be published here by the end of 2019 at the latest. The forms needed for the documents will be published here either during December 2019 or January 2020.

You will also need to attach a copy of your passport in your application. Your personal data including name, citizenship and photograph must be shown clearly.

If you apply to several master’s programmes

Information about how you should apply for SI scholarships for several master’s programmes will be published here by the end of 2019 at the latest.

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 your application is granted, we will continue to use this personal information in order to handle your scholarship. We deal with this information in accordance with the Swedish Principle of Public Access to Information and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Your personal information is handled by SI employees as well as outside experts who have signed a contract of compliance. For more information please read SI’s privacy policy.