We list 3 partially Funded PhD 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 Singapore (1), Thailand (1) and the United States (1). Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 3 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 3 partially funded PhD scholarships open to Nigerian students. Each one leads to a doctoral or postdoctoral place, and each one pays for part of the cost rather than all of it. That is the defining feature of the list: none of these awards is a full ride, so you should read every entry with a clear idea of what remains for you to cover.
The awards sit in three countries: Singapore, Thailand and the United States. The fields named across the three are Business & Management, Engineering, and Natural Sciences. Where an award does not name a field, treat that as open rather than restricted.
All three awards are open to Nigerian applicants. On this list, none of the three names Nigeria or the African region as a requirement, and all three carry no nationality restriction. That is a useful distinction. An award that names a region is telling you who it was designed for; an award with no nationality restriction is telling you that citizenship is simply not part of the selection criteria. The second kind is what you are looking at here.
No award on this page states its eligibility in a way that excludes Nigerians, and none leaves eligibility unstated. You can read each entry knowing that your nationality is not the obstacle.
These are doctoral awards, so the entry point is a master's degree. In Nigerian terms that means an M.Sc, M.A, MBA or M.Phil, followed by a PhD or doctoral programme abroad. If you are finishing your M.Sc now, this list is relevant to you in the coming cycle rather than immediately.
One structural point matters more than most applicants expect. Funded doctoral places and research scholarships are frequently tied to a supervisor or a research group. The programme application and the scholarship application often share a single deadline. That means you cannot treat the admission form and the funding form as two separate tasks with two separate calendars. Identify the supervisor, make contact, and work backwards from one date.
Because these are partial awards, the honest question is not "what does it cover" but "what does it leave". Across the three awards, the benefits named in their own text break down like this:
Read those figures as what the awards say in writing, not as a promise of what you will receive. A partial award that names living costs may contribute to them rather than meet them, and the amount is set by the provider. Where an award does not name a benefit, do not assume it is included, and do not assume it is excluded either. Budget for the gap and treat anything the award covers as reducing it.
For a Nigerian applicant paying transcript fees, courier charges and English-test fees out of pocket before you ever submit, the gap is the number that matters. Work it out in naira and in the host currency before you commit to an application.
The requirements stated across these awards are few, which is not the same as easy. In the awards' own text:
Where an English test is named, check whether the award accepts a waiver. Some providers waive the test if your previous degree was taught in English, and a Nigerian degree often qualifies. That is worth an email to the admissions office rather than an assumption either way, because an IELTS or TOEFL fee is real money.
Where a minimum degree class is named, the wording will usually be in the provider's own system: a UK-style 2:1, a GPA band, or a classification. Map your Nigerian class of degree onto it carefully and honestly before you apply. Where letters of recommendation are named, approach your referees early. Nigerian academics are asked for these constantly and a two-week notice is not enough.
The deadline picture on this list is mixed. 1 award carries a dated deadline, 1 is still open, 2 are undated, and 1 recurs. November is the busiest month, with 1 deadline falling in it.
The one closing soonest is the Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowships 2027, which closes on 8 November. It is listed for the United States.
Two of the three awards do not carry a date at all, which changes how you should handle them. An undated award is not an open invitation to delay. It usually means the provider sets deadlines by programme, by intake or by supervisor, and you have to go and find the date yourself. Treat undated entries as work to be done, not time in hand.
The list is short enough to describe in full.
Two providers are named across the list: Leading universities worldwide, and S P Jain School of Global Management. Where a provider is not named, go to the award page and confirm who is administering the funding before you build an application around it.
Start with the award that has a date. The Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowships closes on 8 November, and everything else on this page can wait behind it. If you intend to apply, your referees and your English-test position need to be settled now, not in the final week.
Then handle the two undated awards by finding their real deadlines. For the Asian Institute of Technology, the deadline varies by scholarship programme, so identify the specific programme before you plan anything. For the S P Jain business scholarships, the listing is open all year, which usually means rolling review rather than a single cut-off.
Before you spend on transcripts and courier fees, confirm three things for each award you shortlist: the exact benefit it names in writing, whether an English-test waiver applies to your Nigerian degree, and the degree class or GPA band it expects. Then work out what the partial award leaves you to fund, and decide whether that gap is one you can close.
If the gap is too wide, this list is not your only option. The same collection pages carry awards at master's, bachelor's, fellowship, postdoctoral and high school level, and the funding filters let you move from partial to fully funded without starting over.
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