How VLIR-UOS Selection Works

Stage 1: Academic Admission (University)

Your application must clear this stage before VLIR-UOS ever sees it.

The host institution reviews every application against its academic admission requirements. Only academically admitted candidates can receive a scholarship, so if you do not meet the programme's standard, your application ends here. The institution then ranks the eligible applicants and sends its selection list to VLIR-UOS.

What universities assess

• Academic qualifications: a bachelor's degree in a relevant field, or higher for advanced master's programmes
• English proficiency: IELTS/TOEFL or an equivalent the programme accepts
• Field-specific prerequisites, e.g. a statistics background for Statistics and Data Science, or engineering for Water Resources Engineering
• The quality of your motivation letter and recommendations
• Your overall academic profile and fit with the programme

Stage 2: Scholarship Screening (VLIR-UOS)

VLIR-UOS then runs its own screening of the list it receives and validates the selection. These are the criteria VLIR-UOS publishes; the balance criteria are where the process stops being only about your application.

1. 1
   Most important

   Motivation and development relevance

   Your motivation and goals should show you can transfer knowledge or set up extension activities on sustainable-development themes relevant to the programme. Specific, professional applications score better than general academic interest. “I want to learn more” is not development relevance. “I manage a municipal water system serving 400,000 people and this degree gives me the capacity-modelling skills to design the upgrade we need” is.

2. 2
   Professional experience

   Preference goes to candidates most likely to apply and pass on new knowledge — in higher education, government, civil society or the private sector. Fresh graduates without professional context are at a disadvantage. Not an absolute bar, but a real one.

3. 3
   Gender balance

   VLIR-UOS targets a balance between men and women and strongly encourages women to apply; its 2027 call to programmes sets an overall guideline of 40% men and 60% women among scholarship holders. A strong woman in a male-dominated pool therefore has better relative odds, and a strong man in a male-heavy pool worse ones. This is a deliberate development policy, not bias.

4. 4
   Regional balance

   VLIR-UOS aims for a reasonable cross-section of scholars from different countries and regions, provided there are enough qualified candidates. If many strong candidates from one country apply in the same year, not all can be selected, whatever their merit. This is the factor most outside your control.

5. 5
   Leave No One Behind

   Between equally qualified candidates, preference goes to people from vulnerable groups. Your socio-economic context is weighed relative to your country, not in absolute terms.

6. 6
   No previous study in a higher-income country

   Candidates who have never studied for a bachelor's or master's in a higher-income country get preference. A short exchange does not count against you.

When and How You Hear

VLIR-UOS emails selected candidates and those on the waiting list as soon as possible after selection, and no later than mid-May — mid-May 2027 for this cycle. Candidates not selected for a scholarship or the waiting list are told by the programme they applied to. Questions about your application go to the institution, not VLIR-UOS.

The Waiting List

Programmes send VLIR-UOS a ranked list, and candidates on the waiting list are told so by email. Waiting-list candidates can receive an award if a selected scholar declines, withdraws or becomes ineligible before the start. From 2027, each programme selected for VLIR-UOS's new phase gets six (or seven) scholarships a year, so places are few.

The waiting list is real and does convert into awards. If you are wait-listed, reply promptly and confirm you are still available — people who do not respond can lose their place.

Why Strong Candidates Are Sometimes Rejected

This is not a system where the highest-ranked applications always win. The balancing criteria are explicit. If you are a strong male candidate from Ethiopia in a year when five other strong male Ethiopian candidates apply, not all of you can be selected — even if all of you deserve it.

The pool of applicants changes every year, and the balance criteria are relative. So the same application can have very different odds from one year to the next.

That is why reapplying is worthwhile: see how to apply.