Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP)

The plan was originally proposed by Canadian statesman Sidney Earle Smith in a speech in Montreal on September 1, 1958 and was established in 1959, at the first Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) held in Oxford, UK. Since then, over 25,000 individuals have held awards, hosted by over twenty countries. The CSFP is one of the primary mechanisms of pan-Commonwealth exchange.

There is no central body which manages the CSFP. Instead, participation is based on a series of bi-lateral arrangements between home and host countries. The participation of each country is organised by a national nominating agency, which is responsible for advertising awards applicable to their own country and making nominations to host countries.

In the United Kingdom, which is the biggest contributor to the Plan, this process is managed by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom, a Non-Departmental Public Body, and funded by the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The UK offers:

• Scholarships for postgraduate study
• Academic Fellowships for staff in developing country universities
• Split-site Scholarships for PhD students to spend up to one year in the UK
• Professional Fellowships for mid-career professionals in developing countries
• Distance Learning Scholarships for developing country students to study Master’s degree courses.

Traditionally, most of the awards were offered for the masters program as well as the doctorates and taught courses. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions in few countries, markedly in the UK, offering Fellowships intended to provide established university staff in developing countries with an opportunity to modernize their skills. The selection of the applicants is a partnership between the home and host country. When a country decides to offer awards, this is notified to those countries whose citizens will be eligible. It is then for those countries to advertise the awards, and to make the required number of nominations. It will then be sent to the host country, who will select the final recipients from nominations received. Often this will involve competition between the nominations of different countries.

The participation of each country is organised by a national nominating agency. Agencies are responsible for advertising awards applicable to their own country and making nominations to host countries. Applicants should apply to the nominating agency in their own country in the first instance. In most cases, the agency is part of - or appointed by - government agencies. In the case of some award categories, however, the functions are filled by other bodies, such as individual universities or their representative bodies. As a result of decisions taken at the 14th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in November 2000 it is likely that some countries will accept nominations from a wider range of sources in future years, whilst retaining existing agencies as the main channel. Further details will appear on individual country pages as announced.