We list 90 fully Funded PhD 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 China (10), the United Kingdom (10) and Australia (9). 53 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 90 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 90 fully funded PhD scholarships open to Nigerian students who want to do doctoral study abroad. Every award here is labelled fully funded by the body offering it, and every one of the 90 sits at doctoral level. That is the whole list — nothing on the page is partially funded, and nothing on it is a Master's-only award.
If you are weighing up whether to go now or build a stronger file first, it helps to know the site carries 70 fully funded Master's scholarships as well. The doctoral list is smaller and more specific, but it is not thin. Ninety awards is enough to find three or four that match your field and your timeline.
China and the United Kingdom lead with 10 each. Australia follows with 9, the United Arab Emirates with 6, and the United States with 6. Canada and Japan each carry 5, Germany and Thailand 4 each, and Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Turkey 3 each. Belgium has 2, and Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, Romania, Spain and Switzerland carry 1 each.
That spread matters for a Nigerian applicant. It means the list is not built around one visa system or one set of bank requirements. If a particular country's proof-of-funds process is difficult for you, there are 89 other awards on the page spread across other destinations.
The counts below come from what each award states in its own text. They are what the award says it provides, not a promise about your particular offer letter.
Read those numbers together. Tuition and living costs appear on most of the list, which is what "fully funded" usually means in practice. Travel, insurance and accommodation appear on roughly a third to a half. Research or training costs — the money for lab consumables, fieldwork, conference attendance, software — appear on 22. That is the line item Nigerian doctoral candidates most often forget to check, and it is the one that decides whether a funded place is actually affordable for four years.
Of the 90 awards, 53 are open to Nigerian applicants. Of those 53, 4 name Nigeria or the region in their own eligibility text, and 49 place no nationality restriction at all. The remaining 37 do not state their eligibility on the award page itself.
That last group is not a closed door. It means the award page does not spell out who may apply, so you have to go to the funder's own rules before you spend money on transcripts or a courier. Treat those 37 as "check first", not "no".
For the 49 with no nationality restriction, the practical barrier is rarely nationality. It is the documents. Budget for that early.
These are the requirements awards state in writing, counted across the list.
Two things stand out for a Nigerian applicant. First, 53 awards want recommendation letters, and most want them from academics who can speak to research ability, not just coursework. If your M.Sc supervisor has moved institutions or is slow to reply, start that conversation months before the deadline, not weeks.
Second, 40 awards name an English test. If you studied your degree in English, check the individual award's waiver rule before you pay for IELTS — some waive it, some do not, and the brief does not tell us which is which. Do not assume. Confirm on the award page.
The 30 awards asking for a research proposal are the ones where the quality of your writing decides more than your transcript. The 19 that name a minimum degree class are the ones where your classification — first class, second class upper — is checked before anything else is read.
Of the 90 awards, 29 carry a stated date, 28 are currently still open, and 61 are undated. Of those undated awards, 28 recur — they run on a cycle each year, so the absence of a date does not mean the award is closed.
The busiest months are April and October with 6 deadlines each, then March with 4. If you are planning a cycle, those are the months your documents need to be ready before.
The awards closing soonest are:
Monash University appears four times across the list, and the University of Oxford three times. Where one institution carries several awards, one application to that institution can sometimes put you in front of more than one funding panel. Read each award's rules on that point.
Engineering and Medicine & Health Sciences lead with 11 awards each. Arts & Humanities has 9, Business & Management 8, Law 7, Education 6, Economics & Finance and Social Sciences 5 each, Agriculture 4, and Natural Sciences 3. Computer Science & IT, Energy & Environment, and Public Policy & Development carry 1 each.
Beyond Monash and Oxford, the list includes UK universities as a group (2), various universities (2), participating Australian institutions (1), and a Canadian institution with a quota to host Vanier scholars (1).
Six awards state how many places they offer. The rest do not, so do not read a low field count as a low chance — a field with 1 award may still take several doctoral candidates.
This list is for you if you hold a Master's degree — an M.Sc, M.A, MBA or M.Phil — and want a funded doctoral place. Many of these awards are tied to a supervisor or a research group, which means the programme application and the scholarship application often share one deadline. You cannot treat them as two separate tasks with two separate calendars.
Start with the documents you control. Order your transcripts and have them ready to courier. Line up your referees and give them the award text, not just a link. Draft a research proposal you can adapt across several awards rather than writing a new one each time. Check the English-test waiver rule on each award before you book a test date.
Then work the list. Filter by your field, check the eligibility line on the 37 awards that do not state it, and note the April and October clusters. The awards closing in October are already in view on this page — read them first.
A browser notification when a scholarship you can apply for is added or about to close. No account needed.
