IRO PhD Scholarships for Developing Countries Belgium

As one of its contributions to development cooperation, KU Leuven offers scholarships every academic year to exceptional students from developing countries to course their PhD in the largest university of Flanders, Belgium. The programme is organised and managed by IRO, the University’s Interfaculty Council for Development Cooperation. This programme is intended for the student to do his or her whole research at KU Leuven; therefore, any other type of agreement (e.g. Sandwich programmes, etc) are not envisioned.
Over the past ten years, the IRO Doctoral Scholarships Programme has supported over a hundred PhD graduates.  Having obtained their doctoral degree from KU Leuven, the PhD holders are now utilising their expertise back in their home countries either at a university (by doing academic research), government bodies, civil society organisations or in various sectors of the industry.
KU Leuven is situated at about twenty kilometers from Brussels, the capital of both Belgium and Europe. It is the oldest university of the Low Countries. As such, it has a long-standing tradition of hospitality towards students and scholars from abroad. Currently, almost 7,000 international students (about 15% of the total number of students at KU Leuven) have found their home away from home in Leuven.
Host Institution(s):
Katholieke Universiteit in Flanders, Belgium
Level/Field of study:
Doctoral or pre-doctoral programmes in Humanities and Social Sciences, Science, Engineering and Technology, or Biomedical Sciences.  The research topics proposed by the KU Leuven Doctoral Schools can be found on their respective websites.
 
Target group:
Citizens of countries on the OCDE DAC table that are considered as: Least Developed Countries, Low Income Countries or Low Middle Income Countries.
Scholarship value/inclusions:
The scholarship includes waived tuition fees, monthly allowance, housing allowance, installation allowance, health insurance, accident insurance, and return flight tickets.
Eligibility:

1. The applicant must be a citizen of one of the countries on the OCDE DAC table that are considered as: Least Developed Countries, Low Income Countries or Low Middle Income Countries.
2. The applicant may not possess a citizenship from an EU country. The applicant may not posses a long-term EU residence permit.
3. The candidate’s latest master’s degree must have been awarded no more than ten years prior to 1 October 2016 (including the ongoing calendar year).
4. The candidate must hold an academic qualification at least equivalent to a high distinction. Degrees obtained with a final score equivalent to second class second/lower division will not be taken into consideration.
5. Excellent academic quality of the research project, focusing on the development relevance of the proposal.
6. The candidate must demonstrate a development-oriented motivation.
7. The candidate must be supported by a local co-promoter at the candidate’s home country to ensure embeddedness of the research within the country’s context.
8. The candidate must be supported by excellent recommendations from relevant referees.
9. The candidate must follow the application procedure and complete his file before 13 November 2016.

Application instructions:

1. Online application:

It is the sole responsibility of every candidate to complete their online application file.
Follow accurately the online application instructions. you must pay special attention to the following conditions:

• Before submitting the online application form, make sure to have the following fields correctly filled in:
  • Your first name and last name must be written EXACTLY as they appear on your passport.
  • The status must be either “Doctoral programme (diploma contract)” or “Predoctoral programme”.
  • If the application is submitted between September and October 2016, the academic year must be 2016 – 2017; starting from November 2016, the academic year must be 2017 – 2018.
  • The answer for the question “Is this application also intended as a scholarship application?” is “Yes”.
  • The name of the scholarship agency is “IRO Doctoral Scholarship”.
• Make sure to upload all the core documents. Please follow the instructions about uploading PDF documents and pay special attention to the following guidelines:
  • The bachelor’s degree diploma must be saved as IROdiplomaB_your last name.
    • If you have more than one diploma, it should be clearly indicated (i.e. IROdiplomaB1_your last name)
  • The bachelor’s degree transcript must be saved as IROtranscriptB_your last name.
    • If you have more than one transcript, it should be clearly indicated (i.e. IROtranscriptB1_your last name)
  • The master’s degree diploma must be saved as IROdiplomaM_your last name.
    • If you have more than one diploma, it should be clearly indicated (i.e. IROdiplomaM1_your last name)
  • The master’s degree transcript must be saved as IROtranscriptM_your last name.
    • If you have more than one transcript, it should be clearly indicated (i.e. transcriptM1_your last name)
  • The English proficiency certificate must be saved as IROenglish_your last name.
    • ONLY the certificates enlisted here can be accepted.
  • The scanned copy of your passport must be saved as IROpassport_your last name.
  • The thesis proposal must be saved as IROproposal_your last name. The document must include the electronic signature of the KU Leuven promoter and the original signatures of the applicant and local co-promoter. Only the official IRO format must be used.
  • Your CV must be saved as IROcv_your last name.
  • The motivation letter must be saved as IROmotivation_your last name. The document must include the electronic signature of the KU Leuven promoter and the original signatures of the applicant and local co-promoter. Only the official IRO format must be used.
• Additionally you must upload the following:
  • The CV of your local co-promoter; it must be saved as IROlocalcopromoter_your last name.
• Only if you are currently living in one of the EU or EEA countries, you must upload your residence permit and save it asIROrespermit_your last name.
• Only if you are applying for a doctoral programme in either economics or applied economics, a GMAT or GRE score (for a  GMAT score, please contact GMAC [code JQH7X51] and arrange for an original score card to be sent directly to the International Admissions and Mobility by ETS or GMAC, respectively, before November 13th 2016.
  For details please visit website
• http://www.kuleuven.be/english/international/funding/iro/application-procedure
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