Photo: Sven Menschel WUR has a variety of scholarships for foreign students unable to pay for a Master’s themselves. The international students have to apply personally for some scholarships, such as the Holland Scholarship and the Africa Scholarship Programme. Others are awarded by the university to Master’s students who have already been admitted. They include the Excellence Programme and scholarships co-financed by the Anne van den Ban Scholarship Fund and Nuffic’s Orange Knowledge Programme. There are also country-specific scholarships, for example for students from Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia and Ukraine. WUR has now created a handy overview of all the different scholarships on its website.
Diversity
It is doing this so as to be able to award more scholarships to foreign students. All WUR’s scholarships combined total around two million euros a year, but that money was often not used up, says Dean of Education Arnold Bregt. The Executive Board now wants all those scholarships to be paid out, says Bregt, in order to increase the diversity of the ‘international classroom’. The proportion of students from Africa and Latin America is declining in many degree programmes. The board wants to increase their numbers by drawing attention to the scholarships. But there are also scholarships aimed at attracting outstanding students regardless of the country, says Bregt.
Eric de Munck of Education & Student Affairs has seen the effect the improved website has had. He can allocate several dozen scholarships to international students every year. He had been counting on 100 applications but now expects 300. ‘In the past few days, we have been getting 25 new applications a day.’ The deadline for WUR scholarship requests is 1 February.