Scholarships in January 2027: Deadlines & How to Apply

January is the most misunderstood month in the scholarship calendar. It is not the start of the season — it is the finish line of a season that began in October. The programmes that close in January 2027 include some of the best fully funded awards in the world: France’s Eiffel Scholarship (institutions submit by 6 January), Gates Cambridge for the courses that carry a January funding deadline (6 January), Hungary’s Stipendium Hungaricum (15 January), Sweden’s national master’s admissions round (15 January), which is the gateway to the Swedish Institute Scholarship, and a large group of Erasmus Mundus joint master’s programmes whose consortia set deadlines across the month, including 15 January and 27 January closing dates. If you are reading this in October or November 2026, you have exactly the right amount of time to apply to them properly. If you are reading it in January itself, this guide will still help you — but read the prioritisation section first, because in January the skill is choosing, not collecting.

Two honesty rules govern everything below. First, only programmes whose verified deadline genuinely falls in January 2027 are listed as January deadlines. Two famous programmes are deliberately not on the January list: Türkiye Burslari, whose application window is expected in January–February with a February closing date based on its established pattern (20 February in recent cycles; official 2027 dates TBC), and the Swedish Institute Scholarship portal itself, expected in February 2027 — what closes in January is the Swedish university admissions round you must complete first. Second, where a programme’s January date is an institution’s deadline rather than yours — Eiffel is the clearest case — we say so in bold, because your personal deadline for Eiffel fell in November or December 2026.

Use this guide with the scholarships directory for the wider list, the tools page to organise your dates, and our roundup of fully funded scholarships closing soon in 2026 if your December deadlines come first. The wider context — which of these universities you are actually applying to — is in the universities directory and rankings directory.

January 2027 Deadline Table

The January Programmes, One by One

Eiffel Scholarship, France — 6 January 2027 (institution’s deadline)

Campus France’s official call for the 2027 Eiffel campaign is unambiguous: the call is open until 6 January 2027 and is exclusively for French higher education institutions. Students cannot apply directly. Your university must nominate you, and universities run their own internal selection in November and December 2026 — the University of Toulouse set a 15 November 2026 pre-application deadline, and Université Bourgogne Europe required documents by 4 December 2026. If you secured a nomination path in the autumn, January is when your institution files; your job is to confirm, in writing, that your file was submitted. If you did not, Eiffel becomes a next-cycle project, and the most useful January action is choosing your French institution for the following campaign. The money: €1,200 per month at master’s level and €2,100 per month at doctoral level from January 2026, plus international travel, insurance, housing-search support and cultural activities — but tuition is not covered, a fact Campus France states plainly and many summaries omit. Age caps apply: up to 29 for master’s and up to 35 for doctoral candidates. Results are expected in the week of 12 April 2027. The official call is on Campus France, and our seed guide to the programme sits alongside other government scholarships in the directory.

Gates Cambridge, UK — 6 January 2027 for January-deadline courses

Gates Cambridge splits its international applicants across two funding deadlines, 8 December 2026 and 6 January 2027, and your course decides which one is yours. If yours is the January date, you are in the fortunate group with the full autumn to prepare — but the discipline is identical: the complete application, including all references submitted, must be in by 6 January 2027 at 23:59 UK time. The award covers the University Composition Fee, a maintenance allowance, one economy return airfare, and inbound visa and Immigration Health Surcharge costs, with discretionary funding for academic development, fieldwork and dependants under the Trust’s published rules. There is no age limit, and selection turns on intellectual ability, leadership and commitment to improving the lives of others. Verify your course’s date on the official Gates Cambridge timeline and follow the how-to-apply guidance; our Gates Cambridge guide covers the 500-word statement that carries unusual weight in this competition.

Stipendium Hungaricum, Hungary — 15 January 2027

Hungary’s flagship government scholarship is one of the few major awards open to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral applicants in the same January window. The application deadline for the 2027/28 intake is 15 January 2027 on the official Apply surface, and the system has a second gate that catches applicants every year: you must also be nominated by your country’s sending partner, and some sending partners run earlier internal deadlines. You choose up to two study programmes, in order of preference. The package covers tuition, a monthly stipend (HUF 43,700 for bachelor’s and master’s students at the most recently published rates; doctoral stipends are substantially higher across the two phases), accommodation support of a dormitory place or HUF 40,000 per month, and medical insurance. Applicants must be at least 18; read the current call for any partner-specific conditions before assuming the rest of the rules. Entrance examinations and interviews at Hungarian universities follow in spring 2027, with final results in the summer. Apply through the official Stipendium Hungaricum application surface and confirm your sending partner’s requirements on the programme’s official site.

Swedish Admissions + Swedish Institute — 15 January 2027 is the gate

Sweden runs the most sequential system in this guide, and January is where it is won or lost. Step one: apply for your master’s programmes through University Admissions in the first international round, which opened on 16 October 2026 and closes on 15 January 2027; supporting documents and the application fee follow by the national February document deadline. Step two: if you are a citizen of an eligible country with documented work and leadership experience, apply in the Swedish Institute portal, expected to run in February 2027 based on the last cycle (9–25 February; official 2027 portal dates TBC). The SI Scholarship for Global Professionals covers full tuition, SEK 12,000 per month in living allowance, and a travel grant of SEK 15,000 (SEK 10,000 for scholars from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) at its most recently published rates. The January mistake that ends Swedish applications is ranking carelessness: you can change your programme ranking until the deadline, and ranking affects admission outcomes, so finalise your order deliberately before 15 January rather than treating it as a draft. Start at the official Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals page.

Erasmus Mundus in January — GEM, EPOG and the long tail

January is peak Erasmus Mundus season. The official Erasmus+ position is that there is no single deadline: each joint master’s consortium sets its own, and applications for the 2027 intake run from October 2026 to January 2027. Two verified January anchors show the spread: the GEM programme (Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation) closes on 15 January 2027 at 23:59 CET, offering a tuition waiver, insurance and €1,400 per month for up to 24 months to its scholarship holders; the EPOG programme closes later, on 27 January 2027 at 13:00 Paris time, on the same €1,400-per-month scholarship basis. Dozens of other consortia close on other January dates — which means the only safe method is to open your programme’s own website and copy its date, time and time zone exactly. The funding basis is set at EU level: the Erasmus Mundus action page calculates the scholarship at €1,400 per month across the programme duration, and previous EMJM scholarship holders are not eligible for a second award. You may apply to several programmes, and serious applicants usually apply to two or three well-matched consortia with individually tailored statements. Our Erasmus Mundus guide explains the catalogue.

KAUST, Saudi Arabia — early-January round

KAUST admits graduate students in rounds rather than on a single deadline, and a Fall 2027 round closes in early January 2027 (3 January 2027 in current round reporting — confirm the round for your specific programme on KAUST’s official admissions pages before relying on it, because rounds differ). Every admitted student receives the KAUST Fellowship: full tuition, a monthly living allowance, housing, medical coverage and relocation support at the rates KAUST publishes for the year. There is no stated age limit; selection is driven by academic record and research fit. Because KAUST’s January date is the earliest in this guide, treat it as a December task: references, transcripts and your statement should be complete before the New Year break, when university offices and referees are hardest to reach.

Clarendon, Oxford — January course deadlines

As in December, Clarendon consideration in January is automatic with a timely Oxford course application: apply for your graduate course by its January 2027 funding deadline and you are in the Clarendon pool without a separate form. The practical consequence is that your “scholarship application” is your Oxford application — your statement, writing samples and references carry the whole weight. Check your course’s exact deadline in Oxford’s course directory; assuming a generic “mid-January” date is how applicants discover their course closed in December.

Amsterdam Merit and Danish Government Scholarships — 15 January, with a coverage warning

Two further 15 January routes deserve inclusion with an honest label. The Amsterdam Merit Scholarship at the University of Amsterdam closes on 15 January 2027 for most faculties, and Danish Government Scholarships administered through individual universities — the University of Copenhagen’s, for example — use a 15 January 2027 application date for autumn 2027 entry. Neither is a guaranteed full-cost award in the way Gates Cambridge or Stipendium Hungaricum is: Amsterdam Merit amounts vary by faculty, and Danish awards typically combine a tuition waiver with a possible monthly contribution toward living costs, set by each institution. They belong in a January plan as valuable partial-to-substantial funding that can pair with other support — not as substitutes for a full-cost award if you have no other funding. Verify amounts on the university pages before counting them in a budget, and plan the remainder with our guides library.

Deliberately Not January: Two Programmes to Stop Misdating

Türkiye Burslari opens its application window in January in recent cycles but closes in February — 20 February in the established pattern — so it is a February deadline with a January start, and the official 2027 dates were not yet published when this guide was checked (expected window January–February 2027, closing around 20 February, based on previous cycles). Prepare for it alongside your January applications, by all means — its document set overlaps heavily — but do not let a “January deadline” label rush your submission a month early or, worse, make you miss the real February date once January passes. The Swedish Institute portal is the second misdated item: it is expected in February 2027, and what January holds is the university admissions deadline that makes you eligible to use it. Finally, two programmes to remove from every list: Vanier Canada is discontinued (its doctoral replacement is the Canada Graduate Research Scholarship–Doctoral) and Destination Australia is closed — neither has a January 2027 deadline or any other future deadline.

How to Prioritise in January

If January has arrived and you are choosing under pressure, use this order of operations. First, protect the two-gate programmes. Stipendium Hungaricum’s sending-partner nomination and Sweden’s admissions-then-scholarship sequence both fail completely if one gate is missed, so confirm both halves of each before polishing anything. Second, fund the applications whose documents already exist. A complete Erasmus Mundus application to a well-matched consortium beats a half-built application to a more famous name. Third, respect the reference rule. Gates Cambridge and most January programmes require references submitted, not requested, by the deadline; a referee who has gone silent is a reason to switch applications, not to hope. Fourth, stagger your submissions. Submit the 6 January applications in the first days of January at the latest — ideally in December — then use the following week for the 15 January group, and the final week only for late-January consortia such as EPOG (27 January). Never schedule two major submissions for the same evening.

Step-by-Step Application Plan (October to January)

1. October–November 2026: Shortlist two January programmes maximum per deadline cluster (early January, 15 January, late January). Download each official call or programme page and record the exact date, time and time zone.
2. November 2026: For Eiffel, complete your institution’s internal process — January’s 6 January date is theirs, not yours. For Hungary, register on the application surface and contact your sending partner to learn its internal timeline.
3. Late November: Brief all referees with the earliest deadline minus seven days as their personal deadline.
4. December 2026: Finish KAUST and Gates Cambridge files. Order certified translations. Complete your Swedish programme selections and provisional ranking.
5. Early January 2027: Submit the 6 January group (Eiffel confirmation, Gates January courses, KAUST round). Verify submission status in each portal.
6. By 12 January: Submit the 15 January group (Stipendium Hungaricum plus sending-partner steps, Swedish admissions with final ranking, GEM and other mid-January consortia).
7. Mid-to-late January: Submit late-January consortia (e.g. EPOG by 27 January). Then prepare February files: the SI portal documents and Türkiye Burslari.

Documents Checklist

• Passport (and national ID where a sending partner requires it)
• Degree certificates and transcripts, with certified translations — Stipendium Hungaricum and several Erasmus consortia are strict on format
• Medical certificate (required by Stipendium Hungaricum)
• Motivation letter / statement of purpose tailored per programme (Hungary asks for a motivation letter; SI will ask for its own templates in February — never reuse last cycle’s SI templates)
• Language certificate meeting each programme’s specific requirement, or accepted alternative evidence
• Two references, submitted — plus, for Gates Cambridge, the dedicated Gates referee
• Research proposal for research degrees and for Gates Cambridge doctoral applications
• CV in the specified format (Europass is the safe default for European programmes unless a programme mandates its own template)

Timeline Table: The Whole Winter

Common Mistakes With January Deadlines

Treating 6 January as your Eiffel deadline. It belongs to institutions; yours passed in November or December. Forgetting the second gate. A Stipendium Hungaricum application without sending-partner nomination, or an SI ambition without a Swedish admission application, is incomplete by design. Ranking Swedish programmes carelessly. Ranking is changeable until 15 January and consequential after it. Ignoring time-of-day cutoffs. EPOG closes at 13:00 Paris time, not midnight; Gates Cambridge at 23:59 UK time. Convert every deadline into your local time in writing. Using last year’s templates. The Swedish Institute issues new templates each cycle and disqualifies wrong-format CVs; the same caution applies to Hungary’s current-cycle forms. Planning January around programmes that do not exist. Vanier is discontinued and Destination Australia is closed, whatever a recycled listicle says. Submitting everything on deadline day. January portals carry the heaviest traffic of the season; submit at least 48 hours early, every time. If age rules are your main concern this season, read our companion guide to the top 20 fully funded scholarships for international students without age limit 2027 alongside this one.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the biggest scholarship deadline in January 2027?

By reach, Stipendium Hungaricum on 15 January 2027 — it spans bachelor’s, master’s and PhD levels across many Hungarian universities. By prestige and funding depth, Gates Cambridge on 6 January 2027 for the courses carrying that funding deadline. The Swedish admissions deadline on the same 15 January date matters most for anyone targeting the Swedish Institute Scholarship.

Can I apply for the Eiffel Scholarship in January?

Not directly, and not for the first time. Institutions submit Eiffel applications by 6 January 2027 after running internal selections in November–December 2026. If no French institution is nominating you, your Eiffel campaign is for the next cycle: choose the institution in the spring and enter its internal process in the autumn.

Is Türkiye Burslari a January 2027 deadline?

No. Its window traditionally opens in January and closes in February (around 20 February in recent cycles). The 2027 dates were not officially published when this guide was checked, so treat February as the deadline to plan for and confirm on the official Türkiye Burslari site when the call opens.

What exactly closes for Sweden on 15 January 2027?

The first international admissions round for Swedish master’s programmes starting in autumn 2027. Without an application in that round, you cannot be admitted to an SI-eligible programme in time, and therefore cannot receive the Swedish Institute Scholarship for that intake. The SI portal itself is expected in February 2027.

How many Erasmus Mundus programmes can I apply to in January?

There is no central cap: each consortium runs its own competition, and applying to two or three well-matched programmes with tailored statements is a common, sensible strategy. Remember that a previous EMJM scholarship makes you ineligible for another one.

Does Stipendium Hungaricum require anything besides the online application?

Yes — nomination by your country’s sending partner, whose internal requirements and possible earlier deadlines you must check separately, plus a medical certificate and the documents listed in the current call. Hungarian universities then run entrance examinations or interviews in spring 2027.

I can only finish two January applications well. Which two?

Choose by gate risk and fit: one two-gate programme that matches you (Stipendium Hungaricum or the Swedish route) and one single-portal programme (an Erasmus Mundus consortium closing in January, or Gates Cambridge if your course carries the 6 January deadline and your references are ready). Breadth is worth less than completeness in January.

What happens after January deadlines?

February brings the expected Swedish Institute portal window and the expected Türkiye Burslari closing; March–May brings Hungarian entrance exams and interviews; Eiffel results are expected in the week of 12 April 2027. Keep your email and portals monitored — January applicants lose places in spring by missing response deadlines, not selection.

Sources & Verification

Checked on 21 October 2026 against: Campus France’s official Eiffel 2027 call (institutions submit by 6 January 2027; call opened 2 October 2026; results week of 12 April 2027) and Campus France programme pages (€1,200 master’s / €2,100 doctoral from January 2026; tuition not covered; age caps 29/35), plus French university internal-deadline pages (Toulouse 15 November 2026; Bourgogne Europe 4 December 2026); Gates Cambridge official timeline and apply pages (8 December 2026 / 6 January 2027 by course); Stipendium Hungaricum programme information (15 January 2027 deadline; sending-partner nomination; two programme choices; stipend and HUF 40,000 accommodation contribution); Swedish admissions and SI information (admissions 16 October 2026–15 January 2027; SI portal expected February 2027 based on the 9–25 February last cycle; SEK 12,000/month) via the Swedish Institute official page; the Erasmus+ Programme Guide’s Erasmus Mundus page (€1,400/month; per-programme deadlines) with consortium dates for GEM (15 January 2027) and EPOG (27 January 2027); and KAUST round reporting (early-January 2027 round — flagged in the text as requiring confirmation on KAUST’s official admissions pages). Items marked “expected” rest on the previous cycle and are labelled as such.

Disclaimer: Scholarship rules, amounts and deadlines change every cycle. StudyGraduate is an information portal, not an agency, and cannot guarantee selection, admission or visa approval. Always confirm deadlines, amounts and eligibility on the official programme website before applying.