Fully Funded Scholarships for Nigerian Students in Denmark 2026-2027

What this page lists

This page collects 4 fully funded scholarships in Denmark that are open to Nigerian students. Every award here is labelled fully funded in its own listing, and every one of the four is based in Denmark. The set is small, and that is the point: Denmark does not run one large national scholarship scheme the way some countries do. What it has is a handful of university-linked awards and one European programme, and those are what you will find below.

The four awards sit across three study levels. 3 are PhD awards, 2 are Masters awards, and 1 is a short course. Those groups overlap, because a single award can be open at more than one level, so do not read them as four separate pots of money. Read them as a description of where the openings are: doctoral research dominates, taught Masters comes second, and short-course study appears once.

The awards on this list

• Danish Government Scholarship 2027 (Fully Funded) — University of Southern Denmark, Master's level.
• University of Copenhagen PhD Positions 2027 — University of Copenhagen, PhD level.
• Aalborg University PhD Scholarships 2027 Fully Funded — Aalborg University, PhD (doctoral research) level.
• Erasmus+ Scholarship for Study in Denmark — Danish partner universities, Master's, PhD and exchange level.

Two providers are named directly in the listings: the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Copenhagen. The other two entries do not name a single provider in the same way. The Aalborg award belongs to Aalborg University, and the Erasmus+ entry names Danish partner universities including the University of Copenhagen, DTU, Aarhus and Aalborg, and places the study in Denmark alongside other European partner universities.

What the money covers

Of the four awards, 3 state that tuition is covered, 2 state that living costs are covered, 1 states that travel is covered, and 1 states that health insurance is covered. These are the benefits the awards name in their own text, not a promise that every award pays all four. Check each listing for the exact package before you build a budget around it.

The pattern is worth noticing. Tuition is the benefit most often named, which matters because tuition is the cost that stops most Nigerian applicants from applying to Denmark in the first place. Living costs appear in half the listings. Travel and health insurance appear once each.

For the PhD awards, funding is often described differently from a taught scholarship. The Aalborg listing describes its package as a salary plus a tuition waiver plus benefits, and one listing notes that the position is available for 3 years. That is the shape of a Danish doctoral post: you are engaged as a researcher, not simply handed a fee waiver.

Can a Nigerian applicant qualify?

Of the four awards, 2 are open to Nigerian applicants. Within that group, none names Nigeria or the West African region specifically, and 2 carry no nationality restriction at all. For 2 awards, eligibility is not stated on the award itself, which means you will need to read the full listing and the provider's own page before you decide whether to spend money on an application.

In practice this means the door is open, but it is not held open for you by name. No award on this page says "Nigerians welcome" in so many words. What two of them say is that nationality is not a barrier. That is a different kind of opening, and it puts the work on you: you have to show that your qualifications, your documents and your research fit.

Denmark is a small destination for Nigerian students. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics recorded 30 Nigerian students in Denmark in 2024, ranking the country 74th as a host. That is a thin community. Expect to explain your choice of Denmark clearly in your motivation letter, because reviewers there see few Nigerian applications.

What the applications demand

The requirements stated across these four awards are consistent and document-heavy:

• 3 awards ask for an English test score — IELTS or TOEFL.
• 3 awards ask for letters of recommendation.
• 1 award asks for work experience.
• 1 award asks for a research proposal.
• 1 award asks for an admission offer first.

The English test is the line item that catches Nigerian applicants off guard. Three of four awards name it, and it is not cheap: test fees, plus sending scores to each institution, come out of your own pocket. If you hold a degree taught in English, ask the specific department whether a waiver applies before you book a test date. Waivers exist at some Danish institutions, but they are granted case by case, and the award text here does not guarantee one.

Letters of recommendation are the second recurring demand. Three awards want them. Approach your lecturers and supervisors early, give them your CV and your draft statement, and give them at least a month. A rushed reference reads like a rushed reference.

The research proposal matters for the PhD route. One award names it outright, and for doctoral positions in Denmark a proposal is the core of the application in any case. The single award that asks for an admission offer first tells you the order of operations: university admission comes before scholarship consideration, so budget time for both stages.

How the deadlines fall

None of the four awards carries a fixed closing date on this page. All four are listed as undated, with the deadline shown as "see details" or as a description rather than a calendar date. There is no busiest month to plan around here, and no single next deadline to circle.

What the listings do tell you is where the timing lives. The Danish Government Scholarship entry mentions a February intake with an October 15 date and a September intake, so the cycle runs on intake rounds rather than one annual closing date. The Aalborg entry says the deadline varies by PhD position and points to the university's vacancies page. The Erasmus+ entry says deadlines vary by programme and generally fall between October and January.

That means you cannot wait for a deadline to appear. You have to work backwards from the intake you want. If you are targeting a September start, your documents need to be moving months earlier, because transcripts, courier fees and reference letters all take time you cannot compress at the end.

What to do next

Start with the level you actually qualify for. If you hold a Master's degree and want to pursue research, the three PhD awards are your route, and the Aalborg and Copenhagen listings are the ones to open first. If you are coming out of a B.Sc or HND and want a taught degree, the Danish Government Scholarship at the University of Southern Denmark is the Masters-level entry on this list.

Then work through the documents in the order that costs you least. Confirm whether your degree qualifies you for an English test waiver before you pay for IELTS. Request transcripts from your Nigerian institution early, because that queue is outside your control. Line up your referees before you need them. If a research proposal is required, draft it before you contact a supervisor, not after.

Read each listing in full. Two of the four do not state eligibility on the award itself, and the only way to know whether you qualify is to check the provider's own requirements. Where the listing says the deadline varies by position or by programme, treat that as an instruction to go and look, not as a reason to wait.

Denmark is a narrow list. Four awards, three of them doctoral, two open to Nigerian applicants without a nationality restriction. That is a small field, and it rewards applicants who prepare documents early and apply precisely rather than widely.