Swedish Institute and Nordic Scholarships Guide

Swedish Institute (SI) scholarships

The Swedish Institute is a public agency that runs scholarships for international students who want to study a master's programme in Sweden. Its best-known scheme, the SI Scholarships for Global Professionals, supports full-time master's study and targets applicants with leadership experience who want to contribute to a more sustainable world.

The scholarship is competitive and merit-based. It is designed to cover study and living support during the master's, with the precise components and amounts set out in the official rules each year.

• Run by the Swedish Institute, a public agency
• For full-time master's study in Sweden
• Competitive and merit-based, with a leadership focus

Who can apply for SI scholarships

Eligibility for the SI Scholarships for Global Professionals includes being a citizen of one of the programme's eligible countries, applying for a master's programme that is on the SI's eligible-programme list, being liable to pay tuition fees, and having demonstrated leadership experience.

The list of eligible countries and eligible programmes is defined by the SI and can change between intakes, so you must check the current lists on the official Swedish Institute pages — do not assume your country or programme qualifies without confirming.

How to apply (admission first)

A key point is the order of steps: you first apply for a master's programme through the national application service, University Admissions (universityadmissions.se), and then make a separate scholarship application to the Swedish Institute within its own, usually short, application window.

The scholarship application opens only after you have applied for your programme(s), and SI scholarship selection happens after the university application stage. Read the SI's instructions carefully, because both the programme deadline and the scholarship window must be met, and they fall on different dates.

• Step 1: apply for your master's via University Admissions (universityadmissions.se)
• Step 2: apply separately to the Swedish Institute within its window
• Both the programme deadline and the scholarship window must be met

Scholarships elsewhere in the Nordics

Funding routes differ across the Nordic countries, so treat each one separately. In several Nordic countries, a large share of the available funding comes from individual universities rather than a single national scholarship, and some publicly funded study options are tied to specific nationalities or programme types.

Because arrangements, tuition rules and any nationality conditions vary by country and change over time, use each country's official study portal — for example the national "study in" portals and the relevant universities' own scholarship pages — to find what is genuinely available to you. Avoid assuming that a scheme in one Nordic country exists in another.

Verify carefully and avoid scams

No scholarship can be guaranteed, and you should never pay an agent or website a fee to "secure" an SI or Nordic scholarship; selection is competitive and runs through official channels only. Apply through the official Swedish Institute and University Admissions websites, and through universities' own official pages.

This page is general information, not personalised advice. Always confirm the current eligibility, amounts, deadlines and country lists on the official sources before you act, because these details change between intakes.