We list 23 fully Funded Fellowship Scholarships for Nigerian Students, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. Most are held in the United States (9), Canada (2) and Germany (2). 12 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
United States
9
Written from the 23 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 23 fellowship scholarships, every one of them labelled fully funded. A fellowship is not the same thing as a taught degree. It usually means money attached to a research project, a residency, a named programme or a period of advanced study, and the work you do inside it is closer to a job than to a classroom. Some of the 23 sit at master's level, some at doctoral level, some after the doctorate.
The spread by level is wide. All 23 are fellowships, and within that group 10 also carry a master's level, 9 are postdoctoral, 8 are PhD, 3 are bachelors, 3 are high school, and 1 is a short course. An award can appear under more than one level, which is why those figures add up to more than 23. If you are finishing an M.Sc and looking for the next step, the postdoctoral and PhD entries are the ones to read first. If you are coming out of NYSC with a B.Sc or HND, the master's-linked fellowships are the realistic entry point.
The United States dominates with 9 awards. After that the list thins out quickly: Canada 2, Germany 2, Italy 2, Japan 2, Switzerland 2, then Australia 1, China 1, Spain 1 and the United Kingdom 1.
That concentration matters for planning. A US fellowship often means a visa interview slot, a longer document trail and a decision that arrives late in the cycle. A European or Japanese fellowship may run on a different academic calendar. Read the individual award page rather than assuming the timeline you saw on a US listing applies everywhere.
Providers include the University of British Columbia, McGill University, The American Association of University Women, the University of Pavia and EDiSU, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Clark Art Institute. Some fellowships are run by a university, others by a foundation or a professional body, and the difference shows up in how the application is judged.
Fully funded is a phrase each award uses about itself. What sits underneath it varies, so here is what the awards state in their own text. Travel appears in 12 of them, living costs in 11, tuition in 5, accommodation in 5, health insurance in 5, and research or training costs in 3.
Read those as what is written down, not as a promise that every cost you carry will be met. A fellowship that names living costs and travel but says nothing about tuition is telling you something specific. Before you commit to a courier fee, check the award page for what is named and what is left silent.
Duration is stated for a small number of them: 3 years for two awards, 4 years for one, one fellowship year running July 1 to June 30, and one of 4 to 12 weeks in 2027. Where no duration is given, do not assume a length.
For 12 of the 23, the award makes it clear that a Nigerian applicant may apply. Of those 12, 1 names Nigeria or the region directly, and 11 carry no nationality restriction at all. For the remaining 11, eligibility is not stated on the award page, so you will need to check the funder's own rules before spending money on transcripts.
This is the single most important thing to verify early. A fellowship that is silent on nationality is not the same as one that is open to you, and it is not the same as one that excludes you. It is simply unstated, and an email to the programme office costs nothing.
The requirements the awards state most often are references and writing. Letters of recommendation are named by 12 awards, an English test score such as IELTS or TOEFL by 5, a research proposal by 4, a minimum degree class by 3, work experience by 2, and a commitment to return home afterwards by 1.
Plan the references first. Nigerian referees are often senior academics and administrators who need weeks, not days, and who may be travelling or on strike action. Ask three people, not two, and ask early enough that a reminder is not an insult. Where an English test is named, book the date before you start drafting, because the score has to reach the funder by their deadline, not yours.
Where a research proposal is required, it is usually the part that decides the outcome. A proposal that names a question, a method and a reason the host institution is the right place for it reads very differently from a statement of ambition.
12 of the awards give a date. 11 are still open, 11 are undated, and 11 recur, meaning the cycle repeats and a missed date is not necessarily final. The busiest months are June (3), October (2) and November (1).
Five close soonest:
Others sit further out. The Leo Baeck Fellowship 2026-2027 Germany closes 1 March. If the nearest date is too close for your documents to be ready, the recurring awards are where your attention should go next.
The list is not evenly spread across disciplines. Arts & Humanities 3, Business & Management 2, Social Sciences 2, then Computer Science & IT 1, Energy & Environment 1, Engineering 1 and Natural Sciences 1.
If your background is in the humanities or social sciences, you have more to choose from here. If you are an engineer or a scientist, the list is thinner, and you may need to look at fellowship pages outside this collection as well.
Work in this order. First, decide which level you are actually applying at, because a postdoctoral fellowship and a master's fellowship ask for different evidence. Second, filter by country and read two or three award pages properly rather than skimming all 23. Third, confirm nationality eligibility before you pay for anything. Fourth, line up your referees and your English test date, since those are the two items with the longest lead time and the least flexibility.
Then check your documents. Transcripts from Nigerian universities can take weeks to process and courier fees are real money, so order them only for awards where you have confirmed you qualify. Keep a single folder with your degree certificate, transcript, CV, proposal and referee contacts, and reuse it across applications instead of rebuilding it each time.
The awards that name a return-home commitment are worth reading closely. That condition changes what the fellowship is for, and it is better to know it before you write the statement than after.
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