We list 16 fully Funded Postdoctoral 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 (6), Australia (2) and Brazil (2). 8 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
United States
6
Written from the 16 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 16 fully funded postdoctoral awards open to researchers who already hold a doctorate. Every entry is labelled fully funded by the provider, so you are not sifting through partial bursaries or fee waivers here. The list is built for the stage after the PhD: postdoctoral positions, research fellowships and visiting scholar programmes where the work is your own research rather than a taught degree.
Nine of the 16 also carry a fellowship label, and eight appear at master's or PhD level as well, which means a few providers run one competition across several career stages. If you are still finishing your doctorate, those eight are worth reading alongside this page. If your PhD is complete, the postdoctoral route is the one described below.
The United States accounts for 6 of the 16. Australia and Brazil follow with 2 each. Austria, Germany, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates each host 1.
That spread matters for how you plan. A single award in a country means a single competition with its own timeline and its own host institution arrangements. The American cluster gives you more than one deadline to work with in the same application season, which is useful when referees can only write so many letters.
By subject, the page is thin in the humanities and social sciences: Arts & Humanities, Law and Social Sciences each appear once. Most of the 16 sit in the sciences and in policy research. If your doctorate is in law or the humanities, treat the relevant entry as a targeted application rather than part of a broad sweep.
Of the 16 awards, 8 are open to Nigerian applicants. The breakdown is simple and worth reading carefully: none of those 8 names Nigeria or the African region in its eligibility text, and all 8 carry no nationality restriction at all. In other words, Nigerian researchers qualify because the award is open to international applicants, not because a country quota exists.
The remaining 8 do not state their eligibility on the award page as listed here. That is not a refusal. It means the nationality position is not written down in the material this page draws on, so you would need to check the provider's own rules before spending money on transcripts or a courier.
Your entry qualification is a completed doctorate. The awards on this page are for researchers who have finished the PhD, and the documents they ask for assume you already have a supervisor, a thesis and a publication record to point to.
Fully funded means different things at different institutions, so the useful question is what each award says in writing. Across the 16:
These are counts of what the awards state, not a guarantee that every award covers every item. A fellowship that names living costs and travel but not accommodation leaves you to sort housing from the stipend. Read the individual entry before you assume a package is complete.
Durations vary too. Three awards run for 3 years, one runs for 2 years, one is listed as 1 to ten months, and one follows a fellowship year running from 1 July to 30 June. Short visiting placements and multi-year research fellowships are not interchangeable, and the length usually decides whether you can keep a home base in Nigeria or need to relocate properly.
The paperwork is the part Nigerian applicants underestimate, because most of it costs money and time from here.
Twelve of 16 asking for references is the headline. Postdoctoral referees are usually your PhD supervisor and senior colleagues, and they are busy. Give them the deadline, the award title and your proposal draft at least three weeks ahead, and expect to send reminders.
Only 2 awards name an English test. If you completed a doctorate taught and examined in English, that is often the ground on which a waiver is granted, but the waiver is the provider's decision and not something this page can confirm for any individual award. Where a test is named, budget for it early: booking, sitting and receiving the score can take longer than the rest of your application.
The research proposal is the real work. Six awards ask for one, and it is the document that separates a strong postdoctoral application from a weak one. It should name the research question, the method, the host department and the output you expect.
Eight of the 16 awards carry a stated date and 8 are still open. Eight are listed as recurring, which means the competition returns on a cycle rather than closing permanently, and 8 are undated in the material here.
The busiest months are June with 2 deadlines, then September and March with 1 each. The five closing soonest are:
Two more sit just behind that group: the Helen Hay Whitney Fellowships for Postdoctoral Research 2027, closing 16 June in the United States, and the Clark Art Institute entry above, which is the nearest deadline on the page.
The awards come from a mix of foundations, universities and government-linked bodies. The American Association of University Women, Harvard University, the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research, the Swiss Government and Swiss Universities, the Clark Art Institute and the ACI Foundation each appear once.
A single appearance does not mean a small programme. It means one competition is listed here. Several of these providers run other schemes at other levels, and the eight awards that also appear at master's or PhD level are the clearest sign of that.
Start with the eligibility line, not the funding line. Check whether the award restricts nationality, then check whether it requires a host supervisor to accept you before you apply. Many postdoctoral fellowships do, and securing that agreement takes weeks of email.
Then work backwards from the deadline. Order transcripts and any certified copies first, because Nigerian institutions and courier services set their own pace. Line up your referees second. Draft the research proposal third, and give it the most time.
If a deadline is close, the Clark Art Institute fellowship and the ACI Foundation awards are the two to look at first. If you have more room, the Al Qasimi, Forrest and Vienna entries give you a longer runway to prepare a stronger file. The 8 awards with no stated nationality restriction are the safest starting point for a Nigerian applicant, and you can confirm the rest by reading each entry in full.
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