We list 17 medicine & Health Sciences Scholarships for Nigerian Students, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 13 of them are fully funded. Most are held in Australia (3), China (3) and the United Kingdom (3). 13 state eligibility that includes Nigerian applicants. 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 17 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This collection brings together 17 scholarships in Medicine & Health Sciences open to Nigerian students. Every award here is tagged to the medicine and health field, so you are not scrolling through general funding lists to find the clinical, public health, nursing, pharmacy or biomedical entries. The 17 sit across nine countries: Australia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States each carry three; the Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Singapore and Thailand carry one each.
Funding is weighted heavily towards full support. 13 of the 17 are labelled Fully Funded and two are labelled Partially Funded. The remaining two do not state their funding position either way, so treat those as awards you must read in full before you build any plan around them.
Funding labels matter less than the benefit lines inside each award, because that is where the real cost of studying abroad is settled. Of the 17 awards, nine name tuition in their own text. Seven name living costs. Four name travel, four name accommodation, and four name research or training costs. Two name health insurance, and one names a settling-in or arrival grant.
Read those counts as what the awards say in writing, not as a promise that every line applies to you. A tuition-only award still leaves you to find rent, food, flights and visa costs. If you are self-funding transcripts, courier fees and English tests now, the difference between a tuition waiver and a full package is the difference between a manageable gap and an impossible one. Check the benefit section of each award before you spend money on an application.
The spread across study levels is unusually even. 11 awards cover master’s study, 11 cover PhD, and 10 cover bachelor’s degrees. Several awards appear at more than one level, which is why the numbers add up to more than 17.
For a Nigerian reader this matters at both ends. If you are finishing WAEC or NECO and looking at a first degree in medicine or a health science, the ten bachelor’s-level awards are your entry point, and the Russia and China listings are the ones to read closely. If you already hold a B.Sc or HND and are weighing a master’s, the 11 master’s awards are the practical target. If you hold an M.Sc and are chasing a PhD, the 11 doctoral awards include research-focused funding where a supervisor and a proposal carry more weight than coursework grades.
Watch the stated durations. Three awards run for four years. One PhD entry states 3.5 years with no extension available, which is a hard clock if your fieldwork slips. One bachelor’s programme runs four to five years, and one master’s programme is described in the listing itself. Plan your funding around the stated length, not around the length you hope for.
This is the question worth answering before anything else. 13 of the 17 awards state that Nigerians may apply. Of those 13, one names Nigeria or the region specifically, and 12 carry no nationality restriction at all. For the other four, eligibility is not stated on the award, so you must confirm it with the provider before you invest in an application.
That single named-Nigeria award is the tightest fit on the page. The 12 unrestricted ones are open on paper, but open on paper is not the same as competitive in practice. Where an award asks for an admission offer first, you are effectively applying twice: once to the university, once to the funder. Start the admission side early.
The requirements across these 17 awards are concrete and worth budgeting for. Six ask for an English test score such as IELTS or TOEFL. Five ask for letters of recommendation. Three require an admission offer before you can apply for the funding. Two ask for a research proposal. One states a minimum degree class.
For Nigerian applicants the English test is often the first real cost, and it is avoidable in some cases: a number of institutions waive it where your degree was taught and examined in English, but that waiver is granted by the institution, not by this page. Confirm it in writing before you pay for a test slot. The degree-class requirement is the other one to read carefully. Nigerian transcripts use wording such as Second Class Upper or a specific CGPA, and a funder asking for a minimum class will want that translated clearly, so request your transcript early and check how your department states your standing.
Letters of recommendation take longer than people expect. Give your referees at least a month, and give them your CV and a short note on what the award funds so they can write something specific rather than generic.
Nine awards carry a stated date and nine are still open. Eight are undated, and nine recur annually. The busiest months are October with three deadlines, then June and December with two each.
Five awards close soonest, and these are the ones to open first:
One more dated award sits outside that soonest-five group but is worth noting for its later window: Australia Awards Scholarships 2027 (Fully Funded), which closes 30 April.
The providers on this page are a mix of national governments, single universities and groups of institutions. Among them are participating Australian institutions, the University of Tasmania, Stanford University, leading Russian medical universities including Sechenov, Pirogov, RUDN, Kazan and Kursk, a group of Shanghai universities, and a group of Beijing universities.
That mix tells you something about how to approach each one. Government schemes and grouped university lists often run a single central application, while a single-university award is usually tied to that institution’s own admission cycle. Read the provider line before you assume where your application goes.
Start with eligibility, not with prestige. Open the 13 awards that state Nigerians may apply, and for the four where eligibility is not stated, send the provider a short email asking directly whether Nigerian applicants are considered. That one email can save you weeks.
Then work backwards from the deadlines. If you are targeting the October and December dates, your transcript request, referee requests and English test booking need to be in motion now, because Nigerian transcript processing and courier delivery take time you cannot compress at the last minute. If your target is the March or April window, you have room, but the admission offer requirement on three of these awards means the university application should start well before the funding deadline.
Finally, match the award to your level and your pocket. A fully funded award that names tuition, living costs, travel and accommodation leaves you a far smaller gap than a partial one. Read the benefit lines, confirm the duration, and apply to the ones where the numbers actually work for you.
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