Visegrad Scholarship Program—Instructions for Applicants

1. Eligibility

The appli­cant must either have com­pleted a Bachelor’s pro­gram or—in spe­cific cases (if the study pro­gram is not divided into dis­tinct Bachelor’s and Master’s study programs)—completed at least 3 years before start­ing the schol­ar­ship. The applicant’s home and host uni­ver­sity must be dif­fer­ent, i.e., the pre­vi­ous level of uni­ver­sity stud­ies (last obtained aca­d­e­mic diploma before start­ing the schol­ar­ship) must be com­pleted in a coun­try other than where the appli­cant applies for studies.

2. Rules/Sample of the appli­ca­tion form

We strongly rec­om­mend you read the Rules of the pro­gram and take a look at the sam­ple appli­ca­tion form to see what kind of infor­ma­tion will be required from you for applying.

3. Finding host university/organization

Please note that it can take rel­a­tively long to find a suit­able host uni­ver­sity. Be sure to start long before the dead­line. All host uni­ver­si­ties need to be accred­ited by the respec­tive edu­ca­tion min­istry. To help you find a school you may use the fol­low­ing list:

• Higher Education in Albania
• Higher Education in Armenia
• Higher Education in Azerbaijan
• Higher Education in Belarus
• Higher Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Wikipedia)
• Higher Education in Croatia (Wikipedia)
• Higher Education in the Czech Republic
• Higher Education in Georgia (Wikipedia)
• Higher Education in Hungary
• Higher Education in Kosovo (Wikipedia)
• Higher Education in Macedonia (Wikipedia)
• Higher Education in Moldova
• Higher Education in Montenegro: Mediterranean University, University of Montenegro
• Higher Education in Poland
• Higher Education in Serbia
• Higher Education in Slovakia
• Higher Education in Ukraine (Wikipedia)

See also: List of col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties by coun­try (Wikipedia)

Note: The links serve merely as a ref­er­ence list; schol­ars can, in accor­dance with the Rules, apply for schol­ar­ship at any pub­lic or pri­vate uni­ver­sity accred­ited in the respec­tive countries.

4. 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, print-outs) or doc­u­ments sent sep­a­rately can­not be accepted.

Please make sure you have pre­pared ahead the fol­low­ing annexes to the appli­ca­tion form (they need to be sub­mit­ted to the Fund):

1. Copy of the 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 home uni­ver­sity and the expected date of obtain­ing his/her next aca­d­e­mic diploma, issued by the home uni­ver­sity. If apply­ing for the Master’s Scholarship, an up-to-date tran­script of aca­d­e­mic records cov­er­ing the entire uni­ver­sity stud­ies is also required.

2. 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. 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. 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, 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. 
4. Recommendation let­ter (only for Post-Master’s level)
   If apply­ing for a Post-Master’s schol­ar­ship, 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. This doc­u­ment is to be uploaded with the accep­tance letter.

5. 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.

6. Travel grant

Applicants whose uni­ver­sity or employer (i.e., 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 (see 10. Receiving the schol­ar­ships below for more information).

7. 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.

8. 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 31 January 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 all schol­ar­ship appli­ca­tions is 31 January at 23.59 CET (What is CET?). Next dead­line is 31 January 2012.

9. 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.

10. Receiving the scholarship

If selected, each scholar receives his/her schol­ar­ship fund­ing at the begin­ning of each five-month period upon a writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion from the host university/institution (see Article 4 of the Contract).

Information for the recip­i­ents of the travel grant: The travel grant is paid at the begin­ning of the schol­ar­ship period together with the first install­ment of the scholarship.

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).

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

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).

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