China Scholarship Council Scholarships

Each year the China Scholarship Council (CSC) offers scholarships to Chinese students who wish to study a degree programme outside China. The University of Southampton is recognised by the China Scholarship Council as a partner institute.

Level of study

This scholarship is for postgraduate research study.

Subject areas

This scholarship is for study across a variety of subject areas.

What is covered

This scholarship covers your full tuition fees subject to successful application for a CSC award for living costs. 

Who can apply

To apply for this scholarship you must:

• be a Chinese national
• be younger than 35 when you apply
• meet one of the following academic criteria:
  • be studying a Bachelor or Masters at a top Chinese university (for example, 211 Group, 985 Group or highly ranked by subject area
  • or be studying a Masters, having obtained a Master’s degree in an overseas (non-Chinese) University within a year by the time of the application (not including those who have already returned to China), or first year of a PhD in an overseas University. For the latter, CSC funding starts from the second year of study
  • or have already obtained a bachelor degree and be currently working in China
  • candidates can not be those who have already obtained a PhD degree
• usually have an academic achievement of 80-85% or above in your current studies
• have received an offer of a PhD place from the University of Southampton
• have met the University's English language requirements at the time of application

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. Please state in your application that you wish to apply for China Scholarship Council funding. We recommend that you submit your application by 31 December.

We expect to be able to choose the final candidates by the end of February. If you’re chosen, we’ll send you a fee waiver letter and tell the CSC that you’ve been nominated for this scholarship.

If you’re nominated, you’ll need to apply to the CSC for living costs scholarship funding under the ‘University Partner route’ in March. Please check the CSC’s website for details.

The CSC will announce the results in June.

Further information

You can find more information about this scholarship on the Chinese Scholarship Council’s website.

Xiamen University CSC PhD Scholarships

The University of Southampton has a partnership with Xiamen University to offer joint CSC funded PhD places every year. If you are a student at Xiamen please check out our Xiamen webpage for more details.

What is it like to be a University of Southampton Scholar?

Meet some of our recent scholars as they share their experience of student life at the University of Southampton.