Great interest in Caribbean PhD scholarships: 126 candidates advance to next round
The PhD scholarship programme of the NWO (Dutch Research Council) Caribbean Research programme has been received with enthusiasm: 126 interested parties submitted a letter of intent by the deadline of 24 June 2025. This clearly demonstrates that the programme meets a need among Caribbean researchers who wish to pursue a PhD. The applications come from all scientific domains, ranging from exact and technical sciences to social sciences, humanities, medical and health sciences.
Next step: developing preliminary applications
All applicants have now been notified that they may develop their letters of intent into pre-applications. The necessary forms have been available on the website of NWO since 15 July. Candidates now have two months to write a narrative CV, put together a suitable supervision team and obtain a signed embedding statement from their intended university. The deadline for submitting the pre-application is 15 September 2025.
Support from NWO
To help applicants get off to a good start, NWO has sent all candidates an overview of points to consider when submitting their pre- application. If they have any questions, candidates can contact the NWO support team at phd-caribbean@nwo.nl.
Selection and follow-up
After 15 September, NWO will check whether the pre-applications meet all the conditions. An independent assessment committee will then issue a positive or negative recommendation for each candidate regarding their eligibility to proceed to the final phase: the submission of a full application. A total of seven grants are available. To avoid unnecessary workload, NWO aims to admit 21 candidates to the final round.
More information
For detailed information about the assessment procedure, the selection criteria and the timetable, please consult the call for proposals.