Call for Applications: Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals

COPYRIGHT/PHOTO: Melker Dahlstrand melker@dahlstrand.se +46-70 630 20 88

Overview

What is 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 contribute to a positive and sustainable development in their home countries and region.

The programme is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It offers you a unique opportunity to develop both professionally and academically, experience Swedish society and culture, and build a long-lasting relationship with Sweden and other scholarship holders. Usually 4-6% of the applicants are awarded a Global Professionals scholarship.

Important information

The scholarship is available for citizens from 42 countries.
Applications for Global Professionals 2021 opens up on 8 February.
Only available for programmes starting in the autumn semester.
We recommend that you also look for other scholarship opportunities at www.studyinsweden.se.

What’s included

The scholarship is intended for full-time one-year or two-year master’s programmes. The scholarship period cannot be changed or extended beyond the awarded scholarship period, nor can it be transferred to a study programme other than the awarded master’s programme.

What you get as a recipient of Global Professionals

SI fully covers your tuition fees to the Swedish university you are attending. This is paid directly by SI at the beginning of each semester.
You will receive a regular payment of SEK 10,000 to cover your living expenses throughout the scholarship. This payment is given monthly throughout the scholarship period.
Insurance against illness and accident.
Membership of the SI Network for Future Global Leaders(NFGL) – a platform to help you grow professionally and build your network while in Sweden.
After your scholarship period has ended, you gain membership to the SI Alumni Network. As a member, you get a unique opportunity for continued networking and to further develop yourself professionally. The local networks exist worldwide and currently consist of over 15,000 talented alumni from over 140 countries.
For 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; Sri Lanka; Sudan; Tanzania; Tunisia; Uganda; Vietnam; Zambia; Zimbabwe the scholarship also includes a travel grant of SEK 15,000 for the entire study period. This is a one-time payment and does not apply for students already living in Sweden.
For Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russian Federation, Turkey or Ukraine. The scholarship also includes a travel grant of SEK 10,000 for the entire study period.This is a one-time payment and does not apply for students already living in Sweden.

The scholarship does not cover:

Additional grants for family members.
Application fee to University Admissions.

Note: Depending on the country where you have citizenship, the content of the scholarship will differ in certain areas.

Criteria

Country of citizenship

You must be a citizen of a country that is eligible for the scholarship programme. Read more about country of citizenship.

Who can apply for Global Professionals?

We are looking for ambitious professionals who want to make a difference by working with issues that contribute to a just and sustainable development in their home country and region; and also have a clear idea of how a study programme in Sweden would benefit their country and region. Priority will be given to applicants with a strong and relevant professional background and demonstrated leadership experience.

Required documents

Note! Documents for the scholarship application (2021/2022) will be made available here in December 2020/January 2021.

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 application in English. Use our forms and templates 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.

A complete application consists of:

Motivation letter
CV
Letters of reference
Valid and completed proof of work and leadership experience
Copy of your valid passport

Note: Your application will be disqualified if any of the required documents above is missing.

Motivation letter

You must use the Global Professionals form for the motivation letter 2021/2022. You need to fill in and upload the motivation letter as a PDF-file on the application portal within the application period.

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

You must use the Global Professionals form for CV 2021/2022 and the CV should not exceed three pages. It’s up to you to decide which parts are relevant for your application. Additional pages will not be considered during the evaluation.

Letters of reference

You must use the Global Professionals form for the letter of reference 2021/2022. One letter of reference based on work experience is mandatory. 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 as part of the application. 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 the Global Professionals form for proof of work and leadership experience 2021/2022. 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

You must submit a copy of your valid passport in the application. It must clearly show your personal data, including name, citizenship, and the photograph. A copy of your passport should be included in your CV as a last fourth page. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have a copy of your passport that can be used as part of the application.

If you have applied to several master’s programmes

You should only submit one scholarship application, regardless of how many master’s programmes that you applied for through universityadmissions.se. You can apply for SI scholarships for up to four eligible master’s programmes.

Note: If you have applied for master’s programme(s) at Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), you should create and submit an additional scholarship application separately. Each scholarship application should have only one of the attached, no matter how many master’s programmes you applied for.

If you are only applying for SI scholarships at SSE, you only need to submit one scholarship application for all the master’s programmes at SSE that you applied for. If you have applied at both universityadmissions.se and SSE, you should attach all the required documents in both the scholarship applications.

Scholarship holders at the NFGL Kick-off event — Kick off 2019 Foto: Melker Dahlstrand

The evaluation and selection process:

Screening. Disqualifying all applicants who do not meet the eligibility criteria or that failed to submit a correct application.
Evaluation before admissions. Evaluation and grading of all eligible applications.
Evaluation after admissions. Final evaluation of applications that has been admitted to an eligible master’s programme.
Compiling a shortlist of the best and most qualified candidates.
Final selection. Scholarship recipients are selected, thus concluding the evaluation and selection process.

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, such as incomplete application, wrong form, missing 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.

Evaluation before admissions

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

Evaluation after admissions

When the admission results for master’s studies are announced at universityadmissions.se on 9 April 2021 we will make a final evaluation of the applications that are still eligible for the scholarship.

Shortlist

Through the evaluation process described above, we then compile a shortlist of the best candidates. We will give priority to certain factors which you can read more about in the eligibility criteria section. 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 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, etc. and select the scholarship recipients.

Final selection

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

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.