ARES Scholarship in Belgium 2027-2028: Courses, Eligible Countries and Deadline

The ARES scholarship in Belgium is the Belgian development cooperation award, run by ARES (Académie de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur), that pays professionals from 32 partner countries to take a one-year specialised master’s or bachelor’s, or a short professional course, in the French-speaking part of Belgium. It covers travel, a monthly living allowance, insurance and, for degree courses, tuition.

The 2027-2028 call closed on Friday 18 September 2026, and the deadline is 18 September 2027. ARES says the next call will open in August 2027. This guide sets out the ten 2027-2028 courses, the country list, the rules that rule out most applicants, how the jury scores applications, and what to prepare now so you are ready when the 2028-2029 call opens.

ARES scholarship 2027-2028: status and dates

Item	Detail
Official name	ARES International Training Scholarships
Funded by	Belgian Development Cooperation (DGD)
Call opens	August 2027, according to ARES, for 2028-2029
Deadline	18 September 2027, 12:00 noon Belgian time (based on this year’s date; confirm on the official page when the call opens)
GIRAF account cut-off	Two weeks before the deadline; in 2026 new accounts had to be created or validated by 4 September at 4:00 pm
Results	By email by June of the following year (June 2027 for the 2027-2028 call)
Courses	1 specialised bachelor’s, 8 specialised master’s, 1 continuing training certificate
Length	One academic year from September (degrees); 6 months (continuing training)
Where you apply	GIRAF, the ARES online platform
Application fee	None. ARES asks you to report anyone who requests payment.

The course list is set for each call, so the 2028-2029 list may differ. ARES describes the current call as part of a five-year cooperation programme, which suggests the themes will stay broadly similar, but wait for the official list before you choose.

The call document gives the deadline as noon Belgian time and labels it UTC+1, but Belgium is on summer time (UTC+2) in September. Noon in Brussels on 18 September is 10:00 GMT, which is 11:00 in Lagos or Kinshasa, 13:00 in Nairobi, 17:00 in Jakarta and 05:00 in Lima. To be safe, submit the day before.

How many ARES scholarships are there?

The 2027-2028 call document does not give a number of scholarships. Some listing sites still quote 130 bachelor’s and master’s scholarships plus 70 continuing training scholarships, and others say about 100; neither figure appears in the current ARES call, so treat them as rough guides from earlier rounds. With only ten courses on offer, each course takes a small group, and the jury also balances nationality and gender within that group.

Courses offered under the ARES scholarship 2027-2028

Level	Course
Specialised bachelor’s	Digital Integrated Supply Chain
Specialised master’s	Human Rights
Specialised master’s	Integrated Management of Health Risks
Specialised master’s	International and Development Economics
Specialised master’s	Advanced Master in Microfinance
Specialised master’s	Public Health Sciences: analysis and evaluation of international health policies, programmes and systems
Specialised master’s	Food Chain Safety Management
Specialised master’s	Preventive Conservation and Collections Management
Specialised master’s	Risk and Disaster Management in the Anthropocene
Continuing training (up to 6 months)	Certificate in Cybersecurity Operations and Risk Governance

These are specialised (advanced) programmes taught at universities and colleges of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. Some are taught in English and some in French, and each course page on the ARES site gives its own admission rules. You may apply for one course only. You do not need to have been admitted to a Belgian institution before you apply.

The specialised bachelor’s and master’s courses last one academic year, starting in September and ending in June or September of the following year. The cybersecurity certificate runs for six months.

ARES scholarship eligible countries

Region	Countries
Africa (21)	Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe
South America and Caribbean (5)	Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Peru
Southeast Asia (5)	Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Vietnam
Asia (1)	Palestine

Ghana and Nigeria are not on the list, and neither are India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. The test is where you live and work: you must be a permanent resident of one of these countries and work there. Palestinian nationals are the one exception and can apply even if they live elsewhere.

Who qualifies for the ARES scholarship?

1. Residence and work: permanent resident of, and working in, one of the 32 countries.
2. Degree: a higher education degree that meets the chosen course’s admission rules.
3. Degree age: the degree must be no more than 20 years old when the course starts, plus one extra year for each birth or adoption.
4. Experience: at least two years of relevant work in an eligible country, gained after your last qualification and before the deadline. For the specialised bachelor’s, ARES counts from your bachelor’s degree; for the specialised master’s and continuing training, it counts from your master’s degree.
5. Language: apply in the course’s teaching language and show good written and spoken command of it. Basic French helps with daily life in Belgium.
6. No previous ARES award: people who have already held an ARES scholarship in Belgium are not eligible.
7. One course: a single application per person; a second application for another course is not allowed.

The two-year experience rule catches many people. If you finished a master’s last year, your experience clock restarted then, so work you did before that master’s does not count.

Eligibility edge cases

• You are a Nigerian or Ghanaian working in Kenya or Senegal: the rule is residence and work, not nationality, so a permanent resident working in an eligible country can apply. Keep proof of residence and five years of occupation records ready.
• You already hold an equivalent master’s: the jury gives priority to people without an equivalent diploma. You can still apply, but you must justify why you need a second one.
• Your degree is 21 years old and you have two children: the 20-year limit extends by one year per birth or adoption, so you would still qualify.
• You are self-employed or between jobs: you must work in an eligible country and show proof of occupation for the last five years. The call also asks for an employer commitment to re-employ you, which is hard to provide if you have no employer. Ask ARES before you apply.
• You have no formal proof of address: the call accepts a signed declaration if no residence document exists.

What the ARES scholarship covers

Cost	Bachelor’s and master’s	Continuing training
International travel	Yes, economy class, one return trip per academic year	Yes
Monthly subsistence allowance	Yes, for 12 months plus a reduced 13th month	Yes, for the length of the course
Insurance	Yes, paid directly by ARES	Yes
Tuition fees	Yes	No
Visa costs	Up to €200 built into the allowance; higher costs refunded with receipts	No
Travel between Belgian institutions	Up to €250 on actual costs	Flat €200 travel fee
Indirect mission costs	No	Yes

ARES does not publish the monthly allowance amount in its call page or call document. Some scholarship sites quote a monthly figure; I could not find it in any ARES document, so treat those numbers as unconfirmed until you see your award letter.

Costs the scholarship does not cover

• Family members. The call makes no provision for a spouse or children, so they would need their own funds and visas.
• More than one return trip home per academic year.
• Certifying and translating documents at home before you apply.
• Any rent above what the allowance covers. Brussels is more expensive than smaller university towns such as Louvain-la-Neuve, Liège or Namur.
• Lost income at home. The scholarship is a living allowance, not a salary.

How the ARES jury selects scholars

An academic jury for each course scores eligible applications against eight criteria set out in the call document. Knowing them tells you what to put in your application and what to ask your referees and employer for.

Criterion	What the jury looks at
Academic quality	Degrees, results, teaching or research, publications. Priority to people without an equivalent diploma.
Previous scholarships	Former ARES scholars in Belgium are excluded
Professional experience	Development-related work after university and its social impact
Partner institution	Staff of ARES partner institutions get priority when candidates are tied
Agent of change	Shown commitment to development
Nationality	The jury wants a geographically diverse group
Gender	Aims for parity: the share of women selected must be at least the share of women among applications judged good enough
Knowledge transfer	Firm guarantees you will return to a development-related job, such as a contract or job offer, and pass on what you learn

The last criterion is where many applicants are weakest. A signed letter from your employer promising to take you back, and saying how your role will use the course, does more for you than a generic reference.

How to apply for the ARES scholarship in Belgium

1. Request a GIRAF account: use the account creation form on ares-ac.be. ARES has to validate the account before you can start, which takes from a few hours to a few days, and new accounts are suspended two weeks before the deadline, so do this the week the call opens. Do not create several accounts while you wait. If you activated and used a GIRAF account in the last two years, you can reuse it.
2. Open the form: in GIRAF go to “Competitive Calls” and click the apply button for the international training call once. The form then sits under “My Tasks”.
3. Fill the required fields first: fields marked with an asterisk must be completed before the first save. After that you can return to the draft through “My Tasks”.
4. Upload your documents: the form tells you which ones and whether they must be certified.
5. Submit: click “Submit my application” before 12:00 noon Belgian time on the deadline. You cannot change it afterwards, but you can still view it under “Mes dossiers soumis” (my submitted files).

Documents to start gathering now

The 2027-2028 call document listed these. Incomplete applications are not followed up, and getting certified copies can take weeks in many countries:

1. Two recommendation letters (academic and/or professional)
2. Certified copies of your original degree certificates
3. Certified copies of your transcripts for every year of study
4. Proof of occupation for the last five years
5. A nationality certificate, national ID card or passport copy (voter cards are not accepted)
6. Proof of residence, or a signed declaration if none exists
7. A commitment from your employer to re-employ you after the course
8. A pre-project, for the courses that ask for one

Our recommendation letter samples help if your employer has never written one for a scholarship. ARES programmes are built for people who will go back to their jobs, so a letter from your employer saying how your role will use the training carries weight.

How to write the pre-project and form answers

The call does not ask for a separate motivation letter, but some courses require a pre-project, and the GIRAF form asks about your background and plans. Write these with the jury’s eight criteria in front of you. A short structure works well:

1. The problem at work: one concrete development problem you deal with in your job.
2. What you have done so far: your role, with numbers where you can.
3. What the course adds: name two or three modules and the skill each gives you.
4. Your return plan: the job you go back to, what you will change there, and how you will train colleagues.

An example opening for the Food Chain Safety Management master’s, my own illustration: “In the district food inspection unit where I have worked since 2022, we test fewer than one in ten market samples for aflatoxin because no one on the team is trained to run the assays. I want to come back from Belgium able to set up a sampling plan and train three inspectors to use it.” It names a real gap, a role and a return plan in two sentences.

Common mistakes on ARES applications

• Waiting until the last two weeks to create a GIRAF account, after new accounts are suspended.
• Applying for two courses. Only one is allowed.
• Counting work experience from before your last degree.
• Uploading plain photocopies where certified copies are required.
• Leaving out the employer’s re-employment commitment, which feeds directly into the knowledge transfer criterion.
• Paying an agent. ARES says applying is free.

What happens after you apply

For the 2027-2028 call, pre-selection and selection ran from October 2026 to May 2027, and ARES emails every applicant by June 2027 with one of three outcomes: selected, on the reserve list, or not selected. ARES gives no further feedback, and the only appeal route it names is the Belgian Council of State. If you are selected, you have roughly three months to arrange your Belgian student visa and travel before the September start; the allowance includes up to €200 for visa costs.

If you are on the reserve list, keep your documents and passport ready, because a place can open if a selected candidate withdraws.

ARES compared with similar European scholarships

Scholarship	Country	Who	Funding	Deadline
ARES International Training Scholarships	Belgium	Professionals living and working in 32 partner countries	Travel, monthly allowance, insurance, tuition for degrees	18 September 2027
MARIHE Erasmus Mundus	Austria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Portugal and others	Graduates of any country	€1,400 a month for up to 24 months	21 September 2027 (for the 2028 intake)
Slovakia National Scholarship Programme	Slovakia	Students, PhD students and researchers of any country except Slovakia	€620 to €1,470 a month, for a stay, not a degree	30 April 2027
NL Scholarship	Netherlands	Non-EEA students starting a degree	€5,000 once	Varies by university

ARES is the closest thing left in Western Europe to the Dutch Orange Knowledge Programme, which ended in 2024: a one-year course for working professionals from development partner countries, with full costs covered.

Who should apply, and who should not

Apply if you live and work in one of the 32 countries, have at least two years of development-related work since your last degree, and your employer will take you back. Staff of universities or institutions that already partner with ARES have an edge in tie-breaks.

Skip it if you are a fresh graduate, already hold an equivalent master’s with no strong reason for another, live in a country that is not on the list, have held an ARES scholarship before, or want a full two-year master’s or PhD. For those, look at Erasmus Mundus or university scholarships instead.

If your country is not on the ARES list, look at awards with wider eligibility, such as the Slovakia National Scholarship Programme or Erasmus Mundus master’s like MARIHE.

How to contact ARES about the scholarship

• Questions about the call, eligibility or GIRAF: scholarships-cooperation@ares-ac.be. Use the same address to report anyone asking you to pay.
• Questions about a course’s content or admission rules: the course contact named on that course’s page on the ARES website.
• Postal address and phone: ARES, Rue Royale 180, 1000 Brussels, Belgium; +32 2 225 45 11.

If you would rather study in Flanders, the VLIR-UOS ICP Connect Scholarship is the Dutch-speaking counterpart: all 25 of its countries are also on the ARES list, it funds English-taught bachelor’s and master’s programmes, and it does not require two years of work experience.

ARES scholarship FAQ

When is the ARES scholarship 2028-2029 deadline?

18 September 2027 at 12:00 noon Belgian time. ARES says the call opens in August 2027; the 2027-2028 call closed on 18 September 2026.

Can I apply for the ARES scholarship if my country is not on the list?

Only if you are a permanent resident working in one of the 32 eligible countries, or a Palestinian national. Nationals of countries such as Nigeria, Ghana or India who live at home cannot apply.

Can I apply for an ARES scholarship straight after my first degree?

No. You need at least two years of relevant work after your most recent degree, in an eligible country, before the deadline.

Do I need to speak French for the ARES scholarship?

Only for courses taught in French. You must be fluent in your course’s teaching language; basic French simply helps with life in Belgium.

---

Sources and updates

The deadline, call opening month, course list, country list, eligibility rules, coverage and GIRAF steps come from the ARES International Training Scholarships 2027-2028 page. The noon deadline time, account cut-off, selection criteria, document list, visa and travel limits, results timing and the free application come from the ARES call document for 2027-2028 (PDF linked from that page). The comparison figures come from our own guides to each scholarship. Scholars4Dev’s ARES listing (updated 24 August 2026) was checked as a second source; its 130 plus 70 scholarship count and its older field list do not appear in the 2027-2028 call document and are not used as current facts. The pre-project structure and sample opening are my own guidance. ARES’s scholarship team can be reached at scholarships-cooperation@ares-ac.be. Information checked on 25 October 2026. I will update this post when the 2028-2029 call is published.