VLIR-UOS awards scholarships to students and professionals from a number of countries to study in Flanders as well as travel grants to Flemish/European students to do fieldwork/internships in one of the 31 scholarship countries in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
What is an ICP?
International master programmes (ICPs) are accredited (advanced or initial) master programmes (EQF 7) consisting of 2 or 4 semesters (60 or 120 ECTS respectively) on a subject that is relevant to or specific for development. VLIR-UOS supports a selection of 15 ICPs and provide 12 scholarships per ICP programme.
Who can receive an ICP scholarship?
You can only apply for a scholarship if you meet the following requirements:
- Nationality and country of residence: A candidate should be a national and resident of one of the 31 eligible countries (not necessarily the same country) at the time of the application.
- Age: The maximum age for a master programme candidate is 35 for an initial master and 40 for an advanced master. The candidate cannot exceed this age on the first of January of the intake year.
- Professional background and experience: Priority is given to candidates who are employed in academic institutions, research institutes, governments, the social economy or NGOs, or who aim at a career in one of these sectors. However, master candidates employed in the profit sector or newly graduated candidates without any work experience can be eligible for the scholarship as well, depending on their motivation and profile.
- Fungibility with other VLIR-UOS funding: Candidates working in a university where VLIR-UOS already funds IUC, TEAM or SI projects, can receive an ITP-ICP scholarship if they clearly motivate the reason of their application and clarify why the participation at the ICP programme cannot be funded as part of the existing IUC, Team or SI programme or project funds.
- VLIR-UOS scholarship applications and previously awarded scholarships: A candidate can only submit one scholarship application to us per year – irrespective of the scholarship type – and can therefore only be selected for one of our scholarships per year.
- The Master programme candidate has never received a scholarship from the Belgian government to attend a master programme or equivalent or was never enrolled in a Flemish higher education institution to attend a master programme or equivalent before the first of January of the intake year.
What is the application procedure?
In case you have any questions regarding your application or selection process, please contact the university directly!
Check the eligibility criteria for a scholarship.
If you meet all the criteria, have a look at the selected master programmes (15).
You can find the links to the all the master programmes’ website here.
If a specific programme catches your interest, visit the website of the organising university and follow its instructions.
Via the university’s website, you will have to apply for both admission to the programme as well as for the scholarship itself. When you apply for the programme, be sure to mention whether you wish to apply for a scholarship.
Do not apply for more than one master programme per year.
The dates of application are determined by the programme.
VLIR-UOS receives the selection results of the programme organisers.
VLIR-UOS will contact the selected candidates as well as the waiting list candidates by e-mail as soon as possible after selection, by mid-June at the latest.
Scholarship & Career 