University of Edinburgh Scholarships for International Students 2026

The University of Edinburgh is one of the world’s oldest and most research-intensive universities, and it is also one of the most expensive decisions an international student will ever make. Overseas tuition fees at Edinburgh run well into five figures every year, and Scotland’s four-year undergraduate degrees mean one extra year of fees compared with England. Scholarships are therefore not a bonus at Edinburgh — for many applicants from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria and Indonesia, they are the difference between an offer they can accept and an offer they have to decline. The good news is that Edinburgh operates a genuinely layered funding system: a small number of named central awards, country-specific schemes such as the India Merit Scholarship, a large family of School and College awards, full-fee online-learning scholarships for students in lower-income countries, and structured doctoral funding through the Edinburgh Doctoral College. The less obvious news is that Edinburgh does not run one single, generous, all-purpose “Edinburgh Global Scholarship” for on-campus students in the way many third-party websites imply. Funding here is fragmented, and the students who win it are the ones who map every scheme they are eligible for, early.

This guide walks through every significant route to funding at Edinburgh for 2026 entry, level by level: undergraduate, taught postgraduate, online learning and PhD. Every amount below was checked against the University of Edinburgh’s own scholarship pages at the time of writing, and where a scheme’s next cycle has not yet been confirmed, we say so plainly rather than presenting last year’s figures as this year’s promise. Start by exploring the university itself in our University of Edinburgh profile, then use this page to build your funding plan. You can also compare Edinburgh’s offer with the national picture in our guide to scholarships in the UK and browse the full StudyGraduate scholarships directory.

University of Edinburgh Scholarships at a Glance

Three structural facts explain almost everything about Edinburgh funding. First, most central awards are partial: £5,000–£10,000 against fees that can exceed £30,000 a year, so almost every Edinburgh student combines a scholarship with family funds, savings or a loan. Second, a large share of the real money sits in the schools and colleges, not in the central scholarships office — the Business School, the School of Informatics, the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the medical and science schools all run their own awards with their own deadlines. Third, Edinburgh’s scholarship pages are updated cycle by cycle, and several pages state explicitly that funding for the following academic year “has yet to be confirmed”. Treat every figure in this article as the last confirmed position, and re-check the official page for your exact entry year before you rely on it.

Undergraduate Scholarships at Edinburgh

Edinburgh Global Undergraduate Mathematics Scholarships

This is Edinburgh’s best-known named undergraduate award, and one of the very few central undergraduate scholarships the University runs for international students. The University offers a number of these scholarships to applicants demonstrating the highest levels of academic achievement. Each scholarship is worth £5,000, paid directly to the student in instalments as a contribution to living costs — unusually, this is a living-cost award rather than a fee discount, which makes it flexible money in a city where rent is the biggest single expense. The awards are tenable for the duration of the programme of study, subject to satisfactory academic progress: Edinburgh defines satisfactory progress as a formal School decision of “Progress” or “Conditional Progression” without needing to repeat a year, and the award terminates if that standard is not met.

Eligibility is narrow and specific. You must have International/EU fee status, and you must be accepted for full-time admission to an undergraduate degree programme hosted by the School of Mathematics. The scholarship is not available to students already on programme, and it is not available if you are studying Mathematics as part of a degree hosted by another School — a joint degree administered elsewhere will not qualify, however much mathematics it contains. You should have applied to Edinburgh through UCAS, but you do not need to have received an offer before starting the scholarship application. Selection is competitive and based purely on academic merit. In the last confirmed cycle, applicants were notified of the outcome by 23 April 2026. One important honesty note: the University’s own page for this scholarship states that funding for Academic Year 2027/28 has yet to be confirmed, so if you are applying for 2027 entry, check the page again before counting this award in your budget.

Other undergraduate funding

Outside Mathematics, Edinburgh’s undergraduate support for international students is mostly school-level and programme-specific rather than central. Individual schools periodically offer entrance scholarships, prizes and bursaries tied to particular degrees, and some are linked to widening-access or regional partnerships. Because these change frequently and are sometimes announced only on school pages, the reliable method is to use the University’s scholarship search tool for your fee status and level, then check your school’s own funding page. Do not assume that the absence of a famous central undergraduate scheme means there is nothing: it means the money is distributed, and distributed money goes to the students who search for it. Also remember that Scotland’s undergraduate degrees normally last four years, so a renewable £5,000-a-year award is worth £20,000 across a degree — renewal conditions matter as much as headline values.

Postgraduate Taught Scholarships at Edinburgh

India Merit Scholarship — £5,000 for Indian Master’s students

For the 2026/27 academic year, Edinburgh is offering a £5,000 tuition-fee scholarship for its most academically gifted Postgraduate Taught (PGT) Master’s students applying from India. The award is tenable for the first year of study only, applies to on-campus study, and is deducted from tuition fees. According to the University’s published criteria, the scholarship is awarded to successful applicants who firmly accept an unconditional offer for a full-time, on-campus PGT Master’s programme, are domiciled in India at the time of application, hold international fee status, and are fully or partially self-funded, with an undergraduate degree studied and awarded in India that meets the University’s published grade thresholds. If your programme requires a deposit, you must accept and pay it within the given timeframe or you forfeit both the scholarship and the programme offer — a detail that catches out students who treat the deposit as optional. Grade thresholds are assessed on your primary grading scale, and Business School programmes use their own, higher table. This is one of the most predictable awards in this guide: if you are an Indian-domiciled Master’s applicant with strong grades, plan around it, but confirm the current cycle’s thresholds on the official page before relying on them.

GREAT Scholarships 2026

The GREAT Scholarships programme, run by the British Council with the GREAT Britain Campaign and more than 60 UK universities, offers financial support of a minimum of £10,000 to students pursuing one-year postgraduate study in the UK. The wider 2026 programme covers students from a long list of countries including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan — but each university chooses its own recipient countries, and this is where applicants most often go wrong. At the University of Edinburgh, the 2026 GREAT Scholarships were awarded to successful nationals and residents of Thailand, Mexico and Ghana only, accepted for full-time admission to an eligible one-year, on-campus postgraduate Master’s programme. The scholarship is awarded on academic merit, and candidates must have, or expect to obtain, the overseas equivalent of a UK first-class honours degree. All applicants were to be notified of the outcome by the end of June / start of July 2026. Edinburgh’s page notes that information about GREAT Scholarships 2027 is coming soon — so if your country was not on Edinburgh’s 2026 list, check both the new Edinburgh list and other universities’ GREAT lists, because the country allocation differs by institution. Our scholarships directory tracks the GREAT programme across universities.

School-level Master’s awards

Beyond the named central schemes, Edinburgh’s schools run a rotating portfolio of Master’s scholarships: the Business School operates its own scholarship suite for MBA and MSc applicants, Informatics and engineering programmes carry programme-specific awards, the Edinburgh College of Art offers awards such as music scholarships for Reid School of Music Master’s students, and the social sciences and health schools advertise funded places tied to particular degrees. Values, eligibility and deadlines for these awards are set by each school and change every cycle, so this guide deliberately does not print a single “typical” figure for them — any website that does is guessing. The correct workflow is: identify your programme, open that school’s funding page, list every award attached to your programme, and note each deadline in your calendar. School deadlines frequently fall before central ones, and some school awards require you to hold an offer by a specified date, which means your admission application date effectively becomes a scholarship deadline too.

Online Learning Scholarships

Edinburgh is one of the UK’s largest providers of online postgraduate education, and its Edinburgh Global Online Learning Masters Scholarships are among the most valuable awards in this entire guide for the right applicant: they support students domiciled in eligible countries — drawn from the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s categories of least-developed, low-income and lower-middle-income countries — to study Edinburgh Master’s programmes online from their home country. The eligible-country list is long and includes many of StudyGraduate’s core readership countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, but it is a specific published list, not a general invitation: your domicile must appear on it. A separate scheme supports refugees and displaced students studying online, and the two are easy to confuse because their pages sit side by side — make sure you are reading, and applying to, the right one. Online awards remove the two biggest costs of UK study (relocation and UK living costs) entirely, which is why, for a student who cannot fund Edinburgh in person, this route deserves serious consideration rather than being treated as a consolation prize. Always check the current cycle’s page for the exact coverage and the application window, as both are republished each year.

PhD and Research Funding at Edinburgh

Edinburgh Doctoral College Scholarships

Edinburgh’s flagship doctoral funding now runs through the Edinburgh Doctoral College Scholarships and the College- and School-level doctoral competitions that sit alongside them. In the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences scheme, for example, the scholarship covers the University tuition fee plus a stipend matching the UKRI stipend rate, awarded for between three and four years subject to satisfactory progress (pro-rata for part-time study). The awards are open to UK and overseas students applying to start their first year of study for an on-campus research degree; you must already have applied for admission to a PhD programme, existing PhD students are not eligible, and the awards cannot normally be held concurrently with another fully-funded scholarship. Selection is on outstanding academic merit and research potential, and candidates are expected to have, or expect to obtain, a UK first-class or 2:1 honours degree or the international equivalent — realistically, a strong Master’s performance as well. Doctoral funding at Edinburgh is applied for on strict, early timelines: some College competitions require a complete PhD application — including a research proposal of 1,000–2,000 words, transcripts and two academic references — by a January deadline, with references due shortly after. If you are serious about a funded Edinburgh PhD, your application year starts the previous autumn, not in January.

An honest note on the Edinburgh Global Research Scholarship

Many third-party websites still list the “Edinburgh Global Research Scholarship” as if it were a live scheme. Historically, this award covered the difference between the tuition fee for a UK student and the fee chargeable to an overseas student, for up to three years, for overseas PhD applicants of outstanding merit — and it did not cover maintenance costs. However, the scheme’s official pages are old, the award does not appear as a current central offer for 2026 entry, and Edinburgh’s doctoral funding is now presented through the Doctoral College and College/School competitions described above. Our advice is direct: do not build a funding plan around the Edinburgh Global Research Scholarship name. If a page for it reappears on ed.ac.uk for your entry year, treat that as the authority; until then, apply through the Doctoral College route and your College’s doctoral scholarship competition, and ask the School’s postgraduate office which named awards are live for your intake.

External doctoral and Master’s funding worth stacking

Edinburgh students also win major external awards that are administered outside the University: Chevening Scholarships (full funding for one-year Master’s degrees for future leaders, applied for through Chevening itself), Commonwealth Scholarships and Commonwealth Shared Scholarships for students from eligible Commonwealth countries, and the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, which has supported African students at Edinburgh at both Master’s and online levels in recent cycles. These schemes have their own applications, deadlines and country lists, and several of them close before Edinburgh’s own scholarship rounds. Treat them as parallel applications, not backups.

Eligibility: The Rules That Apply Across Edinburgh Scholarships

Although every Edinburgh award has its own criteria, five tests recur. Fee status: almost all international awards require you to be classified as an overseas (international) fee payer; fee status is determined by the University under UK regulations and is not the same as nationality. Admission status: most awards require you to have applied for — and for many, to hold an offer for — an eligible programme; some, like the Mathematics scholarship, let you start the scholarship application before an offer arrives, while others, like the India Merit Scholarship, require a firmly accepted unconditional offer. Self-funding: several awards require you to be fully or partially self-funded; a student whose tuition is paid in full by a government or employer sponsor is often excluded. Academic merit: competitive awards are decided on grades and, for research degrees, research potential; GREAT Scholarships at Edinburgh explicitly required a first-class-equivalent degree. New entrants only: students already on programme are excluded from almost every entrance scholarship. Read the eligibility list of your specific award literally: at Edinburgh, “domiciled in” a country, “national of” a country and “resident in” a country are three different tests, and schemes use different ones.

Benefits: What Edinburgh Scholarships Actually Cover

The practical lesson of this table is that only doctoral funding and the online scholarships approach full coverage. Every other Edinburgh award leaves a substantial balance of fees plus all of your living costs to fund yourself — and for your Student visa you must still demonstrate the full required funds to UKVI, because a partial scholarship reduces, but does not remove, the amount you must evidence. Edinburgh’s own estimate for postgraduate living costs in 2026-27 is an average of £18,504 per year (£1,542 per month), published on its programme pages. Build your budget on the University’s estimate, not on the lower UKVI maintenance threshold alone.

How to Apply for Edinburgh Scholarships: Step by Step

1. Apply for admission first. Submit your UCAS application (undergraduate) or programme application (postgraduate) as early as you can. Most Edinburgh scholarship systems only become accessible once you have a University applicant record.
2. Search the official scholarship database by fee status and level. Use the University’s Scholarships and Student Funding pages rather than third-party lists, and filter for international students at your level. Save the page for every award you are eligible for.
3. Check your school’s funding page separately. Central listings do not capture every school award. Your school’s page is a second, mandatory search.
4. Note the access delay. Edinburgh warns that after you submit an admission application it can take up to five working days for system checks to complete before you can access the online scholarship application system via MyEd/EUCLID. Applying for admission the day before a scholarship deadline is therefore a genuine risk.
5. Complete the scholarship application form in the system. Most Edinburgh awards are applied for through the online scholarship application form in EUCLID, accessed via the MyEd portal, using your University username and password. Some awards (such as the India Merit Scholarship) are awarded on the basis of your admission record rather than a separate form — the official page will tell you which model applies.
6. Meet the linked conditions. If your award depends on accepting an unconditional offer and paying a programme deposit by a set date, diarize both. Missing a deposit deadline forfeits the scholarship as well as the place.
7. Apply in parallel for external schemes. Chevening, Commonwealth and GREAT-related applications run on their own calendars; do not wait for Edinburgh’s outcome before starting them.
8. Watch for the outcome window and respond fast. Edinburgh publishes outcome timings per scheme (for example, Mathematics applicants were notified by 23 April 2026 and GREAT applicants by the end of June / start of July 2026). Scholarship offers can carry short acceptance deadlines.

Required Documents

Prepare a single, complete document set before you start, because Edinburgh’s scholarship form draws on your admission file and panels will not consider incomplete applications for doctoral funding. You will typically need: degree certificates and full academic transcripts (with certified English translations if they are not in English); evidence of your predicted or achieved grades if you are still studying (an interim transcript or certificate of enrolment, for doctoral applicants); a research proposal of 1,000–2,000 words for PhD funding applications; two academic references, submitted within the window the scheme specifies; evidence of English language proficiency where your programme requires it; a copy of your passport and any document evidencing domicile or nationality where a scheme is country-specific; and, for sponsored or partially sponsored students, a sponsor letter so the University can test the self-funding rules. Keep file names clear and documents legible — scholarship administrators disqualify messy files more often than applicants realise.

Deadlines and Timeline

Because several Edinburgh pages currently carry “funding yet to be confirmed” or “details coming soon” notices for the next cycle, the only safe deadline is the one printed on the official page for your entry year. Use our guide to scholarships in the UK to keep Edinburgh’s dates in context with national schemes like Chevening and Commonwealth, whose deadlines fall in the autumn and winter before entry.

Selection Criteria and How to Improve Your Chances

Edinburgh’s competitive awards are decided overwhelmingly on academic merit and, for research degrees, research potential; the University states for its doctoral scholarships that factors such as financial status, nationality and proposed field of study are not taken into account. That has a practical consequence: your scholarship case is built from your grades, your institution’s standing, your references and — at PhD level — the quality and fit of your research proposal and your supervisor match. Improve your chances by applying for admission early enough to hold an offer when panels sit; by choosing referees who know your work in detail and can write specifically about research potential; by aligning a PhD proposal tightly with a named supervisor’s research area and contacting them politely before you apply; and by applying for every award you are eligible for, including school awards and external schemes, because Edinburgh’s system rewards breadth of application rather than loyalty to a single scheme. For taught Master’s applicants, the highest-value habit is simpler: secure the strongest possible undergraduate result, because thresholds (such as the India Merit grade tables and GREAT’s first-class requirement) are mechanical — you either clear them or you do not.

Common Mistakes Edinburgh Applicants Make

• Assuming a single “Edinburgh Global Scholarship” covers on-campus study. The “Global” name attaches to specific awards (Mathematics, Online Learning, the historical Research scholarship). There is no general central fee scholarship for all international students — plan around the real, named schemes.
• Applying for GREAT at Edinburgh from an ineligible country. The UK-wide GREAT country list is not Edinburgh’s list. In 2026 Edinburgh’s GREAT awards were for Thailand, Mexico and Ghana only.
• Missing the deposit condition. India Merit holders who fail to accept and pay a required programme deposit in time forfeit the scholarship and the offer.
• Leaving admission too late. Scholarship-system access can take up to five working days after your admission application; doctoral schemes may also require a complete application months before the scholarship form closes.
• Ignoring school-level awards. A significant share of Edinburgh’s Master’s money is awarded by schools, on school pages, with school deadlines.
• Budgeting a partial award as full funding. A £5,000 award against £30,000+ fees still leaves fees and roughly £18,504 a year of living costs (the University’s own 2026-27 estimate) to evidence for your visa.
• Confusing the two online scholarships. The general Online Learning Masters Scholarship and the refugee/displaced-students scheme are different awards with different eligibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the University of Edinburgh offer full scholarships for international students?

Full funding exists but is narrow: Doctoral College Scholarships cover tuition plus a UKRI-rate stipend for PhD students, online learning scholarships cover tuition for eligible online Master’s students from listed countries, and external schemes such as Chevening and Commonwealth can fully fund a Master’s. For on-campus undergraduate and taught Master’s study, Edinburgh’s own awards are mostly partial (£5,000–£10,000), so most students combine them with other funding.

How much is the Edinburgh Global Undergraduate Mathematics Scholarship?

£5,000 per year, paid in instalments towards living costs, tenable for the duration of a full-time undergraduate degree hosted by the School of Mathematics, subject to satisfactory academic progress. The University notes that funding for 2027/28 has yet to be confirmed, so check the official page for your entry year.

Can Indian students get a scholarship at Edinburgh?

Yes. The India Merit Scholarship offers £5,000 towards tuition fees for the first year of an on-campus PGT Master’s for academically gifted students domiciled in India in 2026/27, subject to grade thresholds and to accepting an unconditional offer (and paying any required deposit) in time. Indian applicants can also compete for school awards, doctoral funding and external schemes such as Commonwealth Scholarships.

Is the Edinburgh Global Research Scholarship still available?

It is not listed as a current central scheme for 2026 entry. The historical award covered the difference between UK and overseas PhD tuition fees and did not cover living costs. Current doctoral funding runs through the Edinburgh Doctoral College Scholarships and College/School competitions, which cover tuition plus a UKRI-rate stipend. Always verify the position on ed.ac.uk for your entry year.

Do I need an offer before applying for Edinburgh scholarships?

Usually you must at least have applied for admission, because scholarship applications are made through the University’s systems using your applicant record. Some awards let you apply before an offer (Mathematics), while others require a firmly accepted unconditional offer (India Merit). Allow up to five working days after applying for admission before you can access the scholarship system.

Which countries were eligible for GREAT Scholarships at Edinburgh in 2026?

Thailand, Mexico and Ghana. Edinburgh chooses its own GREAT countries each cycle, and they differ from the UK-wide programme list and from other universities’ lists. Candidates needed the overseas equivalent of a UK first-class honours degree and an eligible one-year, on-campus Master’s place.

Can I hold two Edinburgh scholarships at once?

Generally, Edinburgh’s fully-funded awards cannot be held concurrently with another fully-funded scholarship, and doctoral awards are reduced pro-rata when combined with partial funding. Rules differ for partial awards, so check the terms of each award you win and declare other funding honestly.

When should I start preparing my Edinburgh scholarship applications?

In the autumn before you start. Doctoral funding can require a complete PhD application as early as November–January, external schemes such as Chevening close in the autumn, and school awards often require you to hold an offer by a fixed spring date. Starting in the spring of your entry year is too late for most of the valuable awards.

Sources & Verification

The facts in this article were checked against the University of Edinburgh’s official pages at the time of writing, including: the GREAT Scholarships 2026 page (Registry Services); the Edinburgh Global Undergraduate Mathematics Scholarships page; the University’s India Merit Scholarship information for Indian applicants; and the Edinburgh Global undergraduate funding pages, together with College pages describing the Edinburgh Doctoral College Scholarships.

Disclaimer: Scholarship details, amounts, eligibility lists and deadlines change every year, and several Edinburgh schemes had not yet confirmed their next cycle when this article was written. Always confirm deadlines and amounts on the official University of Edinburgh website before applying. StudyGraduate is an information portal, not an agency: we do not promise or guarantee admission, scholarship selection or visa approval, and no one can legitimately do so.