international phd scholarships for indian students

Felix Scholarships

Eligibility, how to apply.

The Felix Scholarship enables outstanding students from India to pursue graduate studies in any subject at the University of Oxford, the University of Reading and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS). Felix has been supporting students at Oxford since 1991. The scholarships are administered by the three partner universities, with the support of the Felix Trustees. Please see the Felix Scholarship website for more information.

The scholarship will cover 100% of course fees, a grant for living costs (around £18,300) and one return flight from India to the UK. Awards are made for the full duration of your fee liability for the agreed course.

At Oxford, one award is also made each year to a non-Indian student who is ordinarily resident in a low income country outside India. For more information about the non-Indian scholarship, see the Eligibility section on this page.

Scholarship outcomes

Decisions are expected to be made by the end of May 2025. If you have not heard from us by this time, then please assume that your application has been unsuccessful. Due to the volume of applications we receive, we regret that we are unable to contact unsuccessful applicants individually or provide feedback on applications.

To be eligible for both the Indian and the non-Indian scholarship, you must be applying to start a new full-time Master's course or full-time DPhil course at Oxford. You must not have previously studied a course at the same level as the course to which you are applying (i.e. if you already have a Master's degree, you will not be considered for this scholarship if you are applying for another Master's course). You must be unable to take up your place at Oxford without financial assistance.

Indian scholarship

In addition, for the Indian scholarship, the following eligibility criteria apply:

You must be a national of and ordinarily resident in India;
You must have a first-class undergraduate or master's degree from an Indian university;
You must not hold a degree from a university outside of India (this rule does not apply to study undertaken whilst in receipt of a Felix Scholarship); and
You are expected to return to India after completing your studies.

Non-Indian scholarship

One award is made each year to a non-Indian student who is a national of and ordinarily resident in a country (outside of India) which is categorized as Other Low Income Countries or Least Developed Countries on the DAC List of ODA Recipients .

In addition, for the non-Indian scholarship, the following eligibility criteria apply:

You should have a first-class undergraduate degree;
You must not already hold a degree from a university outside of your home country (this rule does not apply to study undertaken whilst in receipt of a Felix Scholarship); and
You are expected to return to your home county after completing your studies.

Both scholarships will be awarded on the basis of academic merit and financial need. Applicants who hold deferred offers to study are not eligible to be considered for either scholarship.

There is no separate application process: in order to be considered, you must submit your application for graduate study by the relevant December/January deadline for your course. See the Courses page for the deadline applicable to your course.

We will use the details you insert in the ‘Nationality and ordinary residence’ section of the graduate application form to assess your nationality and country of ordinary residence. For a definition of ordinary residency and further details on how to complete this section of the graduate application form, please see the 'Nationality and ordinary residence' section of the graduate application form and also the Application Guide .

We will use the details you insert in the Qualifications section of the graduate application form to determine your previous education institutions. For further details on how to complete this section of the graduate application form, please see the Qualifications section of the graduate application form and also the Application Guide .

To be eligible for consideration for this scholarship, applicants must be successful in being offered a place on their course after consideration of applications received by the relevant December/January deadline for the course. Course applications which are held over after the December/January deadline to be re-evaluated against applications received by the March deadline or course applications which have been put on a waiting list are not eligible for scholarship consideration.

Applicants who are shortlisted for the Indian scholarship may be asked to complete a short questionnaire before being invited for interview in India. There is no interview for the non-Indian scholarship.