University of Cambridge Africa Changemakers Scholarship

Deadline: Sept - Oct 2025

The Cambridge Trust is a major source of funding to students at the University of Cambridge and offers a number of scholarships for postgraduate applicants. The Cambridge Commonwealth European and International Trust is a charity established with the sole purpose of providing support to students to enable them to benefit from the educational and research opportunities offered at the University of Cambridge. The Cambridge Trust awards approximately 600 scholarships annually, supporting around 1,500 students in residence each year, and has helped more than 22,000 students from 149 countries across the world take up their places in Cambridge during its forty-year history.

The Cambridge Africa Changemakers Scholarship is one of the scholarship programmes under the Cambridge Trust. This is a full-cost scholarship for PhD students in any subject, open to candidates from any country in Africa. It is tenable at any college. In the 2023/2024 cycle, 55 phd scholarships were awarded to African citizens. It aims to provide support to talented students who require financial assistance to take up their places at the University, whose research contributes to the development of the Continent and to climate-resilient and sustainable futures for Africa and the world. This scholarship programme is closely affiliated with the Mastercard Foundation scholars programme.

Scholarship Benefits

• University tuition fee

• Annual stipend (sufficient for a single person)

• Immigration Health Surcharge

• Visa

• Travel and research costs

Eligibility

• Research area must contribute to the development of the African continent and to climate-resilient and sustainable futures for Africa and the world.

• significant academic achievement and potential

• financial need (although some scholarship programmes are based on academic merit alone)

How to Apply

No separate application is required for this scholarship, only the application for admission to the University of Cambridge, which must be submitted by the funding deadline specific to your course (please refer to the Postgraduate Course Directory).

To apply for admission, you will need the following:

• Gates Cambridge Reference 

• Two academic references 

• Transcript 

• CV/resume

• Evidence of competence in English if required 

• Research Proposal (document upload) (mandatory): The research proposal should be a detailed description of the project of your doctoral thesis, of at least 600 words.

• Sample of Work (max 5) (document upload) (mandatory): You should submit one or more examples of your written work, such as essays or a dissertation, in areas relevant to the postgraduate study you wish to pursue. You may submit an essay you have written specifically for this application, but please indicate if this is the case. The writing samples must be entirely your own work, fully referenced and in English. There is no word limit.

How to Find a Supervisor

It is advisable for applicants to familiarise themselves with the work conducted by the department before submitting their materials. Prospective applicants should contact a potential Supervisor with a draft proposal, CV (with grades) and writing sample at least a few weeks before the deadline in order to inquire about the supervisor's capacity and fit to supervise the proposed project. See 'Why study HPS at Cambridge?' for a list of potential supervisors. If applicants do not name a potential Supervisor in their materials, the application may be assigned a Supervisor in the evaluation process.