Banach NAWA scholarships, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange, have been prepared for young people from developing countries who wish to study in Poland. A call for the next edition of the programme has just begun.

This is one of NAWA’s most important undertakings whose aim is not only to internationalize Polish science, but also to equalize opportunities between different regions of the world and build bridges between developing countries and the West by raising the level of education and professional qualifications of citizens. The Banach NAWA programme covers second-cycle studies in Polish or English at Polish HEIs supervised by the Minister of Education and Science in the fields of engineering and technology, agricultural sciences as well as natural sciences. In addition, within the programme, citizens of certain countries, namely Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, are additionally offered the opportunity to pursue second-cycle studies in humanities and social sciences, with the exception of majors in language studies in the native language of the applicant’s country of origin.

NAWA scholarships are open to applicants who:

• • are citizens of developing countries, such as: Albania, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Montenegro, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Colombia, Kosovo, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Nigeria, Palestine, Peru, South Africa, Senegal, Serbia, Tanzania, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam;
• • at the time of submitting an application to the programme are students in the final year of first-cycle studies or hold a bachelor’s degree from a programme country, obtained no earlier than in 2020, in eligible fields;
• • are students who plan to begin their second-cycle studies in English or Polish or a preparatory course in the academic year 2022/23.

The call for applications for the programme will run until 31 March 2022, until 3.00 p.m.

Banach NAWA’s total budget for this year’s call is approximately PLN 9.9 million, although the agency reserves the right to change this amount.

It should be noted that this is a programme that has already made a name for itself, as best evidenced by the numbers. In the previous edition of Banach NAWA, approximately 2,000 applications were submitted and 260 scholarships were awarded to candidates from nearly 30 countries. Representatives from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ukraine and Azerbaijan are a large majority in this group. In addition, the scholarship holders included students from Albania, Belarus, Brazil, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Vietnam, among others.

The most popular among the students in the previous edition of the programme were Warsaw University of Technology, the University of Warsaw, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, the University of Wrocław and the Jagiellonian University.

The patron of the scholarship, professor Stefan Banach (1892-1945), is one of the world’s most famous Polish mathematicians. He was a co-founder of the Lviv School of Mathematics and one of the authors of functional analysis, a branch of mathematics used in describing natural phenomena, among other things.

Details on the call for the Banach NAWA programme can be found HERE.