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Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals: the motivation letter

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The Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals (SISGP) fund master's study in Sweden for people with work and leadership experience. The motivation letter is written on SI's own template in its portal, and is read alongside SI's CV and proof forms. This guide covers who can apply, the letter, what SI assesses and how the documents must agree.

Check your country first

SI only accepts citizens of countries on its eligible list for the call year; living in an eligible country is not enough. We could not open SI's current country list. The latest evidence we found is SI's archived call for academic year 2024/2025 and its SISGP recipient list for 2025/2026.

Country 2024/2025 call 2025/2026 recipients
Nigeria Eligible 22
Bangladesh Eligible 14
Kenya Eligible 12
Pakistan Eligible None
India Not eligible None
Ghana Eligible None

Both are past evidence, and SI sets the list for each call. Check SI's current list on the SISGP page before you start. If your country is not on it, the scholarship is not open to you, whatever your profile.

Two steps, one set of documents

The application has two steps. First, you apply to eligible master's programmes on universityadmissions.se, with each university's own documents, and you must be admitted. Only programmes on SI's eligible list count. For autumn 2027 studies, the first admissions round runs from 16 October 2026 to 15 January 2027. Most applicants who are not EU/EEA or Swiss citizens must also pay a SEK 900 application fee, which must arrive by the fee deadline (1 February 2027). The SI portal pages we read mention no scholarship application fee.

Second, you apply for the scholarship in the SI portal, which opens in February only. In the 2026/27 cycle it was open from 9 to 25 February 2026, closing at 14:59 CET. The portal asks you to add the eligible programmes you applied for on University Admissions. Each person may submit only one SI scholarship application, and eligible women in STEM are considered automatically for the Pioneering Women in STEM track.

Besides the motivation letter, SI asks for its own CV template (at most 3 pages), its proof of work and leadership experience template, two letters of reference on its form and a passport or national ID copy.

The motivation letter template

SI sets the motivation letter questions and character limits for each call. We could not confirm the current questions or limits, so this guide does not state them: open the current call, copy each question and its limit, and plan against those.

Whatever the wording, the letter connects the criteria SI publishes. For each criterion below, list one or two true stories and one concrete plan, then check which template question each answers. Spend characters on specifics: your role, what you changed, the modules you need and the problem you will tackle at home.

The Application Kit for Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals includes Motivation Letter Worksheets with a section where you paste SI's current questions and limits before planning, plus sections for programme ranking, the SI CV and the proof forms. A STAR Evidence Bank tags your stories to SI's criteria and shows gaps.

What SI assesses

  • Professional and leadership experience: documented work hours and leadership. The 2024/2025 call prioritised strong, relevant leadership experience from employment.
  • Link to sustainable development: SI asks how your chosen programmes relate to the United Nations 2030 Agenda, and the 2024/2025 call prioritised work experience in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (confirm in SI's current call).
  • Admission: you must be admitted, or conditionally admitted, to an eligible programme.
  • Plans after studies: SI's reference form asks referees about your capacity to drive social change and your leadership potential, which shows that post-study impact matters.

Work hours, leadership and consistency

In the 2024/2025 call you needed at least 3,000 hours of work experience before a cut-off date, from up to three employers, with full-time and part-time work both counting; confirm the threshold in SI's current call. SI defines leadership as leading other employees in a team or unit with a mandate to influence strategy, allocate tasks and take part in decisions; it can come from an employer or from civil society.

The proof template allows up to 3 work-experience forms and up to 2 leadership forms, one page each and five pages in total, with work tasks limited to 250 characters and leadership tasks to 400. Each form is signed and stamped by a supervisor, HR or the head of the organisation, and must match your CV. The leadership you describe in the letter should be the same leadership these forms confirm.

SI runs random authenticity checks. Fabricated or false documents lead to disqualification and a ban from future SI scholarships, or to termination and full repayment if discovered during the award. Referees who ask for payment or favours are not acceptable. We found no explicit SI rule on AI-written text, so read the declarations in the portal and follow them. The kit's Reference Brief tells your two referees what SI's form asks and the format, without drafting their words.

General information: this article is general information, not admissions advice. Country lists, templates and dates change between cycles, so always check the Swedish Institute's own pages before you apply.

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