UCLouvain - CSC PhD co-funding fellowship competition 2025
The University of Louvain (UCLouvain) has established an agreement with the China Scholarship Council (CSC) since 2017. This initiative is intended to support the hosting of CSC — funded students enrolled at UCLouvain in order to foster links with the Chinese academic community and develop new partnerships with higher education and research institutions in the People’s Republic of China.
Pursuant to this partnership, UCLouvain organizes an annual competition in order to fund jointly with the China Scholarship Council up to 10 students who intend to carry our a PhD at UCLouvain.
Candidates pre-selected by UCLouvain will be advised to apply directly at the China Scholarship Council.
1. Eligibility criterion
To be eligible, candidates must be supported by a UCLouvain academic supervisor.
2. Procedure
The application file must be submitted in electronic format (in one PDF file) by the candidate’s UCLouvain supervisor to the President of the Council for International Action (CAI) at appel-adri@uclouvain.be and romain.gaussin@uclouvain.be by January 17, 2025.
The application will include the application form , the annexes listed on the form. If you have any questions about this competition, please contact Mr. Romain Gaussin (romain.gaussin@uclouvain.be).
In the case of a partnership or collaboration with another institution in China, promoters are invited to carry out a self-assessment before submitting the application in order to identify possible risks that the partnership or collaboration may not respect the values and policies of the UCLouvain.
This evaluation is done by the promoter via the following form (accessible on Intranet): Self Assessment. For questions or support, please contact partnerships@uclouvain.be.
Applications will be examined by the relevant doctoral Commission. Admissible students will receive a PhD pre-admission, conditioned by the successful completion of their master, if applicable.
Applications of students pre-admitted to the PhD will be assessed by sectoral commissions of the Council for International Action (CAI). Based on this evaluation, the final selection will be made by the Council for International Action (CAI) mid-March 2025. The result of the selection will be announced to the candidate, the supervisor and the China Scholarship Council.
All the candidates pre-admitted the PhD, regardless of their selection for co-funding, will be encouraged to apply to the CSC between March 10th and March 31st 2025.
Final results will be published by the CSC around June 2025.
3. Selection criteria
The beneficiaries of the co-funding support will be selected based on the following criteria:
• the scientific merit of the applicant (curriculum vitae, letter of support of the UCLouvain supervisor, etc.) (10% of the evaluation). Consideration will be given to the grades during the Master's degree, scientific output, professional experience related to the research project, prizes and other distinctions, etc. are all taken into account;
• the quality of the research project (30%). Consideration will be given to the project's contribution to the field of study, the quality of the literature review and the proposed methodology, and the project's coherence and feasibility;
• the quality of the environment (10%). Consideration will be given to the suitability and quality of the hosting team at UCLouvain and, if relevant, in the partner institution(s) supervising the doctoral student;
• the relevance of the proposed research work for the candidate’s career plan and for his/her reintegration prospects in the academic and research environment of P. R. of China (15%);
• the present and/or future collaboration potential in terms of collaboration with higher education and research institutions in the People’s Republic of China, and/or the added value of the project for the hosting UCLouvain laboratory (30%).
• The project is expected to respect, wherever relevant, the dimensions of human rights, ethics and integrity, academic freedom and gender equality (5%).
4. Co-funding support
Selected candidates will receive co-funding support in the form of a maximum monthly accommodation allowance of €400 for each month spent in Belgium throughout the duration of their C.S.C. funding.
Furthermore, tuition fees of successful candidates will be paid by UCLouvain.
5. Publication of the call
As soon as available, you will find the information about this call in Chinese on the China Scholarship Council website.
6. Application outside the co-funding competition
Students who would have missed the co-funding competition deadline may still apply to CSC for PhD scholarship. To this end, they will apply to the relevant CDD for PhD pre-admission with their supervisor’s help. If accepted, they will receive a pre-admission letter to include in their CSC application. More details about this procedure.