Australia Awards Scholarships for Developing Countries (Round 21) 2025/2026

Australia Awards Fellowships target senior officials and mid-career professionals, who, in the short to medium term, will be in a position to advance priority development and foreign affairs issues on their return home.

Table of Content

• Summary
• Requirements
• Application Deadline
• How To Apply

Summary

• Application DeadlineJanuary 16, 2026
• ValueFully Funded
• Study LevelPostdoctoral Fellowships
• SponsorAustralian Government

Requirements

Australian Organisations must ensure that all nominated Fellows meet the following general eligibility requirements:

• be a minimum of 18 years of age at the time of commencing the Fellowship;

• not be an Australian citizen or be applying for Australian citizenship -this includes dual citizenship where one of the citizenships is Australian;

• not have Australian permanent resident status or be applying for Australian permanent residency;

• be a citizen of and residing in an eligible developing country. The Fellow's country of citizenship and residency may differ;

• not be current serving military personnel;

• not be married or engaged to, or be a de facto of a person who holds, or is eligible to hold, Australian or New Zealand citizenship or permanent residency;

• have been working in their country of citizenship or residency and in an area relevant to the Fellowship activities preceding the date of the proposed commencement of their Fellowship;

• be able to satisfy all requirements determined by the Department of Home Affairs for a visa;

• be able to participate in the nominated Fellowship activities at the time and for the full duration proposed by the Australian Host Organisation (AHO), except in exceptional circumstances, where approved by the Australia Awards Global Support Unit (GSU) and DFAT;

• be able to travel without family members as DFAT will only fund and provide visa support letters for individual Fellows, not their family members;

• have an adequate level of English language ability to be able to fully participate in the program, including an ability to complete the Fellow's Completion Survey at the conclusion of their Fellowship.

  • Note: AHOs are responsible for ensuring Fellows have an adequate level of English language ability or must implement appropriate measures to enable Fellows to fully participate in and benefit from the Fellowship activities (e.g., translation services).

  • DFAT does not recommend using translation services for Multi-country Fellowships where use of translation services may compromise learning outcomes or where English language capabilities differ substantially amongst Fellows.

Eligible countries

• Pacific

  • Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna

• Southeast Asia

  • Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam

• South Asia and Middle East

  • Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Jordan and State of Palestine

• Africa

  • Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe

• Caribbean

  • Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname

• Europe

  • Ukraine

Priority areas

• Fellowship programs must align with one of the following six development priority areas:
• Climate change, adaptation, resilience and green energy transition (including critical mineral mining)
• Health
• Gender equality, disability equity and social inclusion
• Digital Economy, cyber resilience, and media engagement
• Maritime and the Blue Economy
• Infrastructure and connectivity.

Application Compliance Criteria

Applications MUST meet the below mandatory criteria to be progress to the assessment stage:

• Provide all information in the specified format
• Application has been submitted by a legal Australian Entity with a current ABN
• Applicant cannot be an individual/ OCO
• Submitting officer is an employee of the Australian Organisation
• Applicant Organisation has not exceeded six applications.
• Application cannot exceed 15 DFAT-funded Fellows (does not include AHO/OCO funded Fellows)
• Application only covers eligible countries
• Application includes a co-contribution from the Australian Organisation
• In-Partner country activity is included
• Proposal aligns with one of the development priority areas
• A minimum of two weeks is delivered in Australia
• Proposed Fellowship is between two and 52 weeks in duration (this is inclusive of in-Australia, online, and in-partner country(ies) activities) – cannot be longer than 52 weeks in total.
• In-Australia activity duration is longer than the in-partner country activity duration
• OCO(s) is/are from an eligible ODA listed country(ies)
• OCOs cannot be an international arm or branch of the Australian organisation, nor can it be under the same overarching international organisation or international consortium as the Australian organisation. The OCO must operate and reside in an eligible country.
• Applicant is not listed in the National Redress Scheme (Institutions that have not joined or signified their intent to join the Scheme
• Applicant is not listed in the proscribed lists:
  • Anticorruption and Integrity: Sanctions
  • World Bank Listing of Ineligible Firms and Individuals
  • Terrorist organisations
  • Consolidated List

Check also:
2025 Faculty of Engineering International Tuition Fee Research Scholarship at The University of Sydney Australia
Scholarship winning strategies for 2026

Application Deadline

How To Apply

• Australia Awards Fellowships Round 21 is now open for applications.
• Australian Organisations are encouraged to apply through SmartyGrants.

• Any request for changes to Fellow allocations should be communicated by sending an email to [email protected] with a brief explanation on the requested change. This will need to be considered and approved by DFAT.

For more information, kindly visit Australia Awards webpage.