Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals

The scholarship is fully funded. SI pays the tuition fee directly to the Swedish university each semester, and the scholar receives a monthly allowance of SEK 12,000 for living costs throughout the study period. A one-off travel grant of SEK 15,000 is paid, or SEK 10,000 for scholars from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine; it does not apply to anyone already living in Sweden.

Scholars join the SI Network for Global Professionals, which runs activities for professional growth and networking during the studies, and after the scholarship ends they become members of the Sweden Alumni Network. The scholarship does not include insurance, does not pay for family members, does not cover the University Admissions application fee, and cannot be moved to another programme or extended.

Applicants must be citizens of one of the 34 eligible countries for the current call, though they need not live there. For 2026-27 these were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. They must be liable to pay tuition fees in Sweden and admitted to an eligible master's programme on the day admission results are published.

Work experience is required. Applicants from the six Eastern European countries must prove work experience, with no minimum hours; applicants from the other countries need at least 3,000 hours, from no more than three employers, before February of the application year. Leadership experience is also required, from a job or from civil society, with priority for strong leadership experience in employment and for work experience in the chosen field.

People who hold a Swedish degree or are enrolled at a Swedish university, who have lived in Sweden for two years or more, or who have held an SI scholarship for study in Sweden before, cannot apply. Nor can Swedish or EU and EEA citizens or holders of certain Swedish residence permits, with exceptions for Ukrainians under temporary protection and Moldovans who also hold Romanian citizenship.

The scholarship depends on two separate processes. The university application goes through University Admissions, the Swedish Council for Higher Education's portal, where applicants can list up to four master's programmes and pay its application fee; Stockholm School of Economics and Konstfack run their own admissions. The scholarship application goes to SI through its own portal, with the eight-digit application number from University Admissions.

Only programmes on SI's list are eligible, published in mid-November. Applicants who are only reserves, on a waiting list or admitted late are not considered, and changing the original admission results, for example by declining an offer, removes the scholarship application from the running. SI sets no grade or English requirement of its own; those are checked by the universities.