UM Brightlands Talent Scholarship at Maastricht University

The UM Brightlands Talent Scholarship programme offers four full coverage scholarships (including a tuition fee waiver and monthly stipend) per academic year for a selected number of top-performing non-EU/EEA students with personal development potential that have been (conditionally) admitted to a master's programme connected to the Brightlands campi.

A mandatory component of the UM Brightlands Talent Scholarship is participating in the thesis-intership-programme (TIP), requiring scholarship recipients to write their thesis to an assignment for one of the companies on the respective Brightlands camp.

Target group: top-performing non-EU/EEA master’s students with high personal development potential that have been (conditionally) admitted to a master's programme connected to the Brightlands campi and with a substantiated motivation to contribute to the campuses’ development.

Application procedure

Step 1: Register for one of the participating master's programmes at UM

For further details on how to register for a master's programme at UM, please see your prospective programme’s webpage. Once you have submitted your application via Studielink, you will receive a student ID number for UM. You will need a student number in order to complete and submit the Scholarship Application Form (see Step 2 below).

• Please note: only the master's programmes in the list above are eligible for a UM Brightlands Talent Scholarship.
• Please note: you first have to apply for the master programme at UM to receive your student ID, as soon as you have your student ID you can apply for the scholarship. However, you must meet all admission requirements, except legal residence, of your master programme before the Scholarship deadline. Please be aware that the admission deadline may differ to the Scholarship deadline. 
• Please note: if your study programme requires the payment of a handling fee as part of your programme’s admissions procedure, the UM International Services Desk does not cover handling fees. You are responsible for paying any handling fee your programme may require by 1 February 2025. To check whether your programme requires the payment of a handling fee, please check your programme’s webpage under the menu tab 'Admission requirements'.

Step 2: Please fill in the application form, you need to log in with your UM account

You can find the application Form here. Upload the following documents in .doc, .docx or PDF format, and submit your application. Please note that you will only be able to submit your application once, so please ensure that all of your documents and referee contact details are up-to-date. If you have applied for multiple UM study programmes, the UM International Services Desk will ensure that your complete scholarship application is considered for all eligible programmes for which you have a conditionally approved or approved admissions status.

• Curriculum Vitae
  Your CV should be up-to-date, contain relevant information about your education and (job) experience, and should not be longer than two A4 pages. Please emphasise proven previous extracurricular engagement and active citizenship in your community. If you have received any awards or prizes, please do not forget to mention these on your CV
• Letter of motivation
  Please use the template for the motivation letter. This template will focus on your motivation for the scholarship.
• Proof of academic excellence
  You may upload one of the following documents in order to prove your academic excellence:
  1. 1. Your university transcript that explicitly states your grade point average or class ranking (i.e. first class honours) for your entire study programme; or,
  2. 2. A letter signed by your institution’s Head of Department or Registrar stating that you are one of the top 20 students in the graduating year of your study programme.
     Excellent results during your prior education programmes, as demonstrated by your latest grade transcript. If several applicants are equally qualified, UM will give preference to applicants whose academic transcript demonstrates that they are among the top 5% of the 2025-2026 scholarship programme applicants
• Personal statement of financial needs
  Please explain why you would benefit from being awarded a scholarship and describe your personal circumstances such as financial difficulty, sole parent/caretaking responsibilities, medical condition, disability, refugee status, et cetera.
• A reference letter
  We have prepared scholarship reference letter guidelines; please print these out or forward them to your referee, as they will help your referee to write a good reference letter on your behalf. Please note that referees must be (former) professors, lecturers, or employers, and not family members. Recommendation letters should be dated and written no earlier than February 2024. Letters which do not agree with the guidelines are not taken into account, which means your application is incomplete. You need to upload the reference letter, this cannot be done by your referee. We trust you in this and we can check your reference.
• The contact details of one referee
  Please note that we check the authenticity of your referee by contacting your referee. Therefore, ensure that you take the following steps when choosing a referee and submitting their details:
   
  • Relationship to applicant; indicate your referee’s connection to you. Is this your professor, thesis supervisor, employer? Please remember that family members may not function as referees.
  • Work telephone number of your referee; be sure to include the applicable country calling code.
  • Work or institutional email address of your referee. Letters referencing only a personal email address will be rejected.

Please note that you will only be able to submit your application once, so please ensure that all of your documents and referee contact details are up-to-date.