We list 8 fully Funded PhD Medicine & Health Sciences Scholarships Open to Nigerian Students, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. Most are held in China (3), Australia (2) and Singapore (1). Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
These awards do not restrict the field of study, so medicine & health sciences applicants can apply too.
Written from the 8 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
There are 8 fully funded PhD scholarships on this page, all in medicine and health sciences, and all open to Nigerian students. Every one of the eight is labelled fully funded by the award itself, so there is no mixed group here where some pay tuition only and others pay a stipend. If you are searching for a doctoral place in a medical or health research field and you need the money to come with it, this is the shortlist.
The awards sit in five countries. China carries the largest share with 3, Australia has 2, and Singapore, Thailand and the United States have 1 each. The providers named in the listings include Stanford University, the University of Tasmania, A*STAR in collaboration with NTU, NUS and SUTD, participating Australian institutions, Beijing universities and Shanghai universities.
Fully funded does not mean the same thing at every institution, so it is worth reading what each award says in writing rather than assuming. Of the eight on this page, 5 name living costs, 4 name tuition, 4 name travel, 2 name accommodation, 2 name health insurance, and 2 name research or training costs. One names a settling-in or arrival grant.
That spread tells you something practical. Tuition and living costs are the two lines most commonly covered, and travel appears almost as often, which matters when you are pricing a flight from Lagos or Abuja. Accommodation and health insurance are named less often, so budget for them unless the award text says otherwise. Where a scholarship states a figure, treat that figure as the award's own and check it again before you apply, because rates are sometimes reviewed.
All 8 awards on this page are open to Nigerian students. Of those, 1 names Nigeria or the region in its eligibility text, and 7 carry no nationality restriction at all. Those two figures describe the same eight awards from different angles, not separate pots of scholarships.
The qualification you bring into this level is a master's degree. In practice that means an M.Sc, M.A, MBA or M.Phil, and the awards here lead to a PhD or another doctoral award. If your master's is from a Nigerian university, that is not a barrier in itself. What you will need to show is the transcript, the certificate, and in most cases a supervisor or research group who wants you.
Doctoral funding is often tied to a research group rather than handed out centrally. That means the programme application and the scholarship application frequently share one deadline. Plan for both at once instead of treating the scholarship as a separate step after admission.
The requirements stated on these awards are worth counting, because they tell you what to gather first. Of the eight, 4 ask for letters of recommendation, 3 ask for an English test score such as IELTS or TOEFL, 1 states a minimum degree class, 1 asks for a research proposal, and 1 requires an admission offer before you can apply for the funding.
Start with the letters. Four awards naming them means referees are the most common single requirement on this page, and Nigerian applicants often lose weeks chasing a former lecturer who has moved institutions. Ask early, give your referees your CV, your transcript and a short note on what you intend to research.
The English test is the second item to settle. Three awards state it. If you studied your previous degrees in English, read the individual award text carefully before you pay for a test, because waiver wording differs between institutions and this page cannot tell you whether you qualify for one. Where a test is required, book it early enough that the result reaches the institution before the deadline, not after.
Only one award names a minimum degree class, and only one asks for a research proposal. Do not assume the rest are relaxed about either. A research proposal is the working document of a doctoral application, and a strong one is what gets a supervisor to reply.
Four of the eight awards carry a stated date, and 4 are still open. Four are undated in the listing, and 4 recur on a yearly cycle, which means the window you missed this year is likely to return.
October is the busiest month on this page with 2 deadlines, followed by April and June with 1 each.
The awards closing soonest are:
The two China awards on the page run on their own rhythm. The Shanghai Government Scholarship (SGS) Fully Funded 2026 - 2027 accepts applications between January and June of each year, and the Beijing Government Scholarship 2026-2027 (Fully Funded) points you to its details page for the deadline. Treat both as recurring and work backwards from the month you intend to start.
Eight awards is a manageable number. Read all eight rather than the first two that look familiar, because the eligibility wording is where the real differences sit.
Open the four awards with dates first, since those are the ones where timing decides whether you are considered at all. Then read the China listings, which recur and give you a longer runway if this cycle has already passed you by.
Budget for the costs that sit outside the scholarship: transcripts, courier fees, test registration and any document authentication. These come out of your pocket before any award pays anything, and they are the reason applications stall in Nigeria more often than academic merit does.
If you hold an M.Sc, M.A, MBA or M.Phil and you are ready to commit to a doctoral research project, start with the letters of recommendation and the research proposal. Those two items take the longest to get right, and they are the ones you control.
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