Who can apply? 

Who can apply for a full PhD (3-4 years)?

  • You must have the Chinese nationality, and meet the eligibility requirements of CSC.
  • You are a last-year Master students from a Chinese university (for 4-year scholarship)
  • Or a last-year Master student from a university outside of China (for 4-year scholarship)
  • Or a student who already obtained a Master degree (for 4-year scholarship)
  • Or a first-year PhD student currently enrolled in a university outside of China  (for 3-year scholarship)

 

Who can apply for a jointly supervised PhD (6-24 months)?

 

What does the scholarship cover? 

Based on the agreement between VUB and CSC, the scholarship include a monthly allowance for the allocated period & international flight offered by CSC, and tuition fee waiver & health insurance offered by VUB (Note: the insurance is only provided for full PhD or jointly-supervised PhD students). 

Type of PhD scholarships

- Full PhD candidates (3 to 4 years for a PhD degree at VUB) 

 - Jointly supervised PhD - only for PhD students currently enrolled in a Chinese university (6 to 24 months for exchange or double-degree based on a mutual agreement for each student)

The VUB-CSC scholarship programme offers two kinds of jointly supervised PhD programmes:

  • Jointly supervised PhD without a PhD degree from VUB (equivalent to the PhD exchange or guest student at VUB). 
  • Jointly supervised PhD for a student who wishes to obtain double PhD degrees from both VUB and the home university in China based on the agreement between two universities and two supervisors. In this case, an agreement will be signed between the promoter (or supervisor) at VUB and the promoter at the Chinese university for a specific PhD student. The application follows the same procedure as a PhD candidate mentioned above. Please feel free to contact us for more information.

*Note: According to the policy of CSC, the Chinese supervisor of jointly supervised PhD students can apply for a one-month scholarship to visit the supervisor in VUB.

Application procedure and timeline 

FOR CSC-VUB JOINT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME (CSC与荷语布鲁塞尔自由大学合作奖学金): FULL PHD & JOINTLY SUPERVISED PHD (TO START YOUR PHD IN SEPTEMBER 2024)

NOTE: The application for the academic year 2023-2024 has been closed. For the academic year 2024-2025, the procedure below is estimated based on the previous calls. The actual procedure will be updated as from 6 December 2023.

Nov 2023 - Feb 2024
  1. Please check if you meet the requirement for this scholarship according to the CSC regulation "国家建设高水平大学公派研究生项目选派办法" (only in Chinese).
  2. Please read carefully all information about doing a PhD at VUB by clicking here.

  3. Find a PhD topic and contact a professor/promotor by downloading the list from here (partly updated on 05 December 2023 for the intake in September 2024).

  4. Start the online pre-application by clicking here.

26 Feb 2024

Deadline for VUB online pre-applications. 

Before 10 Mar 2024

VUB (International Relations office) provides offer letters to the pre-accepted candidates for their scholarship applications before the CSC deadline, and sends the list of pre-accepted candidates to CSC.

10-31 Mar 2024

The candidates who are pre-accepted by VUB apply for CSC scholarship before the CSC deadline.

Apr-May 2024

CSC selection process for the final candidates for obtaining the CSC scholarship.

May-Jun 2024

Upon confirmation of final candidates sent by CSC, VUB informs the final candidates to start the VUB PhD application procedure and provides the official admission letters. The final candidates will be informed by CSC individually for the arrangement for the scholarship.

Sep 2024

Enroll at VUB, and participate in the info session especially organized for CSC students. We strongly suggest students arrive VUB at least one week before the official start of the academic year. Please refer to the VUB academic calendar by clicking here. Please take the original documents ("gong zheng jian" or "gong zheng shu") of your authorized/translated Graduation Certificate, Degree Certificate, and Transcript of your Master programme from your home university.

Postdoctoral candidates and visiting scholars

Please send an e-mail to csc@vub.be, mentioning 'CSC Postdoc Application' or 'CSC Visiting Scholars Application'  in the subject, with attachments of your CV in English, a motivation letter,  the topic of research you are interested in, and a short description of your research topic. We will then match your request with a corresponding research group at VUB. If you already have a VUB promoter, please inform us of the name of the promoter, research topic, and duration via email. 

APS certificate

The final candidates who obtained the VUB-CSC scholarship do not need an APS certificate anymore as from the academic year 2018-2019. CSC grant holders are exempted completely from the APS certificate, but only based on the exemption name list provided by the International Relations office at VUB to the relevant Belgian authority. If the candidates applied through this website, the names will be added to the list automatically. If the candidates applied through other channels, please notify the International Relations office by sending an email to csc@vub.be

More information about APS can be found here, or the official APS website here.

Please note that the information above may be subject to change under certain circumstances.

Other types of CSC scholarships (outgoing & incoming)

Language: English 

Level:  

  • Bachelor 
  • Master 
  • PhD 
  • Post-Doc 
  • Staff 

Student Type:  

  • Exchange Student 
  • Degree Student 

     

Country:  China 

Type-Level Assignment:  

  • exchange bachelor
  • exchange master
  • exchange phd
  • exchange post-doc
  • exchange staff

 

Contact

Should you have further questions, do not hesitate to contact us by sending an e-mail to csc@vub.be. Please mention 'CSC PhD Application' or 'CSC Postdoctoral Application' in the subject of your e-mail for Chinese applicants.

For the VUB students who would like to apply for studying in China as an exchange student, please mention "CSC scholarship outgoing mobility" in the subject of your e-mail.

Dear applicants,

Thank you for your interest in VUB. Please note that you are using the valuable time of the supervisors (or say promoters) for your PhD application. If you are accepted by a VUB supervisor but later decide to use the offer from another university (instead of VUB) to apply for a CSC scholarship, please respectfully inform the supervisor and the VUB International Relations office immediately. You may otherwise offend the supervisor and might be reported to CSC.

Thank you for your cooperation!

The online application for the academic year 2024-2025 will be available as from 20 November 2023. Please pay attention to the update of this website.