The China Scholarship Council (CSC) offers scholarships to Chinese students who wish to study a PhD programme outside of China. The University of Southampton is recognised by the China Scholarship Council as a partner institute.
This scholarship covers your full tuition fees subject to successful application for a CSC award for living costs.
Eligibility
We will only consider applicants who have an offer to study for a PhD at Southampton University.
You must:
- be a Chinese national
- be over 18 years old at the time you apply
- have an academic achievement of 80-85% or above in your current studies
- have met the University's English language requirements at the time of application
You must also either:
- be studying for a bachelor’s or master's at a top Chinese university (for example, 211 Group, 985 Group or highly ranked by subject area)
- be studying for a master’s degree in an overseas (non-Chinese) University
- have obtained a master’s degree in an overseas (non-Chinese) University within a year by the time of your application and have not yet returned to China
- be in your first year of a PhD in an overseas University - CSC funding starts from the second year of study
- have already obtained a bachelor's degree and are currently working in China
You cannot apply if you already have a PhD degree.
How to apply
1. Identify a research area or academic supervisor for your research topic.
2. Contact the Faculty Postgraduate Research Admissions team or your proposed supervisor to find out about CSC scholarship opportunities.
3. Apply for a PhD programme and state in your application that you wish to apply for China Scholarship Council funding. We recommend that you submit your application by 31 December.
4. If you get an offer to study and are nominated by the faculty for a CSC award, you can apply to the CSC for the maintenance scholarship.
We expect to be able to choose the final candidates by the end of February 2025. If you are chosen, we will send you a fee waiver letter and tell the CSC that you have been nominated for this scholarship.
If you are nominated, you will need to apply to the CSC for living costs scholarship funding under the ‘Southampton-CSC joint scholarship channel’ in March. Check the CSC’s website for details.
The CSC will announce the results in June.