Scholarships, grants and fellowships for Cameroonian applicants 2027

Cameroonian applicants have 25 open calls on AfriWay, with deadlines from 5 to 28 October 2026. Only one names Cameroon, and three carry AfriWay's fully funded label. Closing hours are given in Yaoundé and Douala time, and the language advice covers applicants trained in French or English.

What Cameroonians can apply for now

Fellowships make up 15 of the 25 calls. The rest are five scholarships, four grants and a single training programme, and 24 different funders stand behind them. By level, postdoctoral researchers get 12 calls, PhD candidates seven, master's applicants and working professionals six each, and three calls take any level.

Cameroon appears by name in one call only: Mandela Washington Fellowship 2027 for Young African Leaders (closed). Two more, ARC-GSSP Postgraduate Scholarships for African Students (closed) and African Climate Collaborative PhD Fellowships 2027 at UCT (closed), welcome every African country. Six are regional, with three for sub-Saharan Africa and three for developing countries, and Cameroon fits both groups. The other 16 have no nationality limit, so a Cameroonian file competes worldwide.

Postdocs. Offers differ sharply. Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainability 2027 lasts three years. Each year brings USD 65,000 in salary, full Cornell employee benefits and USD 12,000 for research and travel. Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program 2027 in the United States (closed) pays USD 60,000 a year at senior and postdoctoral level, rising to USD 65,000 for Earth and planetary sciences. NASA Hubble Fellowship Program 2027 for Postdocs in the United States funds 24 fellows and adds health insurance, relocation and travel support to the salary. AIAS Visiting Fellowships 2027: Unsalaried Research Visits in Denmark (closed), by contrast, pays no salary.

Professionals. Mandela Washington Fellowship 2027 for Young African Leaders (closed) takes 550 fellows, none over 35, to the United States from careers in business, management and public policy. Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship Programme 2027 (closed) places professionals in computer science and IT in a 15-month fellowship based in the United Kingdom. OpenAI AI and Teen Development Research Grant Program 2026 (closed) makes individual grants of as much as USD 1,000,000, and Digital Science Catalyst Grant 2026 for AI tools that act on research (closed) offers GBP 25,000, which may be split.

Undergraduates. One call is open to them. The Image Centre Research Fellowships 2027 in Toronto for photography research (closed) offers six fellowships in the arts and humanities, with a CAD 10,000 stipend for each.

Fully funded calls, earliest first

AfriWay's fully funded label follows a fixed rule. Scholarships and fellowships must cover tuition and a living stipend, grants only living costs. Three calls meet it.

First to close is Knight-Hennessy Scholars 2027: Fully Funded Graduate Study at Stanford (closed), at 13:00 Pacific Time on 6 October 2026, or 21:00 in Yaoundé and Douala. It funds any graduate degree at Stanford for as long as three years: tuition and fees, a stipend covering living and academic costs, and an economy-class round trip once a year.

Next comes ARC-GSSP Postgraduate Scholarships for African Students (closed), due at 23:59 GMT on 7 October, when clocks in Cameroon already show 00:59 on 8 October. It pays full tuition for a postgraduate programme of up to two years in engineering, mathematics or environment and climate, and adds a living stipend, help with travel and other eligible costs. Students go to Ghana, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire or South Africa.

The third is a grant. AGNES Intra-Africa Mobility Grants 2026 for PhD Researchers (closed) closes at 23:59 GMT on 16 October. It pays the travel and subsistence of sub-Saharan PhD researchers on stays of one or two months abroad, capped at EUR 2,300 and EUR 3,000 respectively.

Some calls come close without qualifying. FOR-GHP Fellowship 2027: outbreak readiness for sub-Saharan Africa has no tuition fees and pays for flights, visas and lodging at its three workshops, though not for daily allowances. Mohamed Ali Foundation Fellowship 2027 at Durham University provides a room and every meal for the whole stay, along with a research travel grant, and an honorarium follows at the end. Salaried postdoc posts, such as Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainability 2027, cannot qualify at all, since nobody pays tuition on a postdoc.

Central Africa, French speakers and developing countries

None of the 25 calls is set aside for Central Africa, and none for French speakers. Cameroon qualifies through broader groups instead, which open eight more calls.

Named. Mandela Washington Fellowship 2027 for Young African Leaders (closed) puts Cameroon on its list together with all of its neighbours: Nigeria, Chad, the Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Candidates must read, write and speak English with proficiency.

Any African country. Apart from ARC-GSSP Postgraduate Scholarships for African Students (closed), this group has one member. African Climate Collaborative PhD Fellowships 2027 at UCT (closed) funds 12 PhD fellows for 48 months each, in the social sciences or in environment and climate.

Sub-Saharan Africa. Two of the three sub-Saharan calls come from AGNES, the African-German Network of Excellence in Science, and both must be written in English. AGNES-BAYER Science Foundation Research Grant 2026 for PhD Students (closed) awards a PhD researcher in agriculture or in environment and climate as much as EUR 7,000, and AGNES Intra-Africa Mobility Grants 2026 for PhD Researchers (closed) pays for the short stays above. FOR-GHP Fellowship 2027: outbreak readiness for sub-Saharan Africa completes the group with 18 months of training in outbreak readiness for health professionals, hosted in Ghana, Uganda and Germany.

Developing countries. DAAD EPOS scholarships are attached to three master's programmes in Germany: ISATEC (MSc Marine Biology), University of Bremen: DAAD EPOS 2027 (closed), Sustainable Renewable Energy Technologies MSc, Oldenburg: EPOS 2027 (closed) and International Health MSc, Charité Berlin: DAAD EPOS Scholarship 2027 (closed). All close on 15 October 2026, and the Charité intake begins only in September 2027.

French. Of the 11 listings that state a language, not one leaves out English. French is named a single time, alongside Arabic, English and Ottoman Turkish, as a reading language Mohamed Ali Foundation Fellowship 2027 at Durham University needs for its collection. EUI Jean Monnet Fellowships 2027-2028 for Postdocs in Italy expects good English plus any language the research requires, which would include French for work on French-language sources. Two of the hosts of ARC-GSSP Postgraduate Scholarships for African Students (closed), Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, are French-speaking countries, though the listing gives no language of instruction.

Deadlines in Yaoundé and Douala time, earliest first

All of Cameroon runs on West Africa Time (WAT, UTC+1) and never changes its clocks. Until Europe leaves summer time in late October, London deadlines read the same in Yaoundé, and Berlin, Copenhagen or Rome deadlines one hour earlier. Anything set in North America lands between 21:00 and 08:00 in Cameroon. Hours below are Cameroon time, with the official wording in brackets.

• 5 October: Digital Science Catalyst Grant 2026 for AI tools that act on research (closed) closes at 17:00 (17:00 BST), Bayreuth Academy Fellowships in African Studies, Germany (closed) at 22:59 (23:59 CEST) and Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship Programme 2027 (closed) at an unstated hour.
• 6 October: AIAS Visiting Fellowships 2027: Unsalaried Research Visits in Denmark (closed) closes at 11:00 (noon CET on its page, though Denmark is on summer time), then Knight-Hennessy Scholars 2027: Fully Funded Graduate Study at Stanford (closed) at 21:00 (13:00 Pacific Time).
• 7 October: OpenAI AI and Teen Development Research Grant Program 2026 (closed) closes at 07:59 (23:59 Pacific Time on 6 October). IAIFI Postdoctoral Fellowship 2027-2030 at MIT (closed) gives no hour, and its reference letters are due too.
• 8 October: ARC-GSSP Postgraduate Scholarships for African Students (closed) closes at 00:59 (23:59 GMT on 7 October).
• 12 to 14 October: CEES Fellowship Program Spring 2027: Research Stay in Switzerland (closed), Mandela Washington Fellowship 2027 for Young African Leaders (closed) and Leading for Humanity 2027: Tutu Foundation Leadership Programme (closed), on consecutive days and with no hour stated.
• 15 October: African Climate Collaborative PhD Fellowships 2027 at UCT (closed) closes at 22:00 (23:00 South African time). ISATEC (MSc Marine Biology), University of Bremen: DAAD EPOS 2027 (closed), Sustainable Renewable Energy Technologies MSc, Oldenburg: EPOS 2027 (closed) and International Health MSc, Charité Berlin: DAAD EPOS Scholarship 2027 (closed) give no hour.
• 16 October: Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program 2027 in the United States (closed) closes at 04:59 (23:59 Eastern Time on 15 October). Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship 2027 at CRASSH, Cambridge (closed) closes at noon, if its unzoned noon is UK time.
• 17 October: AGNES-BAYER Science Foundation Research Grant 2026 for PhD Students (closed) and AGNES Intra-Africa Mobility Grants 2026 for PhD Researchers (closed) close at 00:59 (23:59 GMT on 16 October).
• 19 October: The Image Centre Research Fellowships 2027 in Toronto for photography research (closed) closes at 04:59 (23:59 EST on 18 October), since Toronto is still on summer time.
• 20 October: Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainability 2027 closes at 22:00 (17:00 Eastern Time), and Mohamed Ali Foundation Fellowship 2027 at Durham University must receive your file that day.
• 21 October: FOR-GHP Fellowship 2027: outbreak readiness for sub-Saharan Africa closes at midnight CET, which matches Cameroon time. Midnight may mean the first minute of 21 October, so submit on 20 October.
• 23 October: EUI Jean Monnet Fellowships 2027-2028 for Postdocs in Italy closes at 13:00 (14:00 CEST).
• 28 October: NASA Hubble Fellowship Program 2027 for Postdocs in the United States closes at midnight, as the day ends in Cameroon (19:00 Eastern Time).

If a listing names no hour, plan to submit a day early. A power cut or a failed upload late at night is hard to recover from in time.

Preparing from Cameroon, in English and in French

Check the fixed conditions before anything else. AIAS Visiting Fellowships 2027: Unsalaried Research Visits in Denmark (closed) asks for four years of experience or more, and FOR-GHP Fellowship 2027: outbreak readiness for sub-Saharan Africa, ISATEC (MSc Marine Biology), University of Bremen: DAAD EPOS 2027 (closed), Sustainable Renewable Energy Technologies MSc, Oldenburg: EPOS 2027 (closed) and International Health MSc, Charité Berlin: DAAD EPOS Scholarship 2027 (closed) ask for two. Mandela Washington Fellowship 2027 for Young African Leaders (closed) has an age ceiling of 35. IAIFI Postdoctoral Fellowship 2027-2030 at MIT (closed) requires English proficiency, because fellows from abroad need it for their J-1 visa.

If you studied in French, sort out your English evidence first, because it takes the longest. Sustainable Renewable Energy Technologies MSc, Oldenburg: EPOS 2027 (closed) wants level B2 and names seven tests: TOEFL iBT, IELTS, Cambridge, PTE Academic, TOEIC, telc and UNIcert. ISATEC (MSc Marine Biology), University of Bremen: DAAD EPOS 2027 (closed) requires C1. FOR-GHP Fellowship 2027: outbreak readiness for sub-Saharan Africa takes IELTS 6.0, or 79 to 80 on the TOEFL iBT. Confirm which certificates each call recognises before paying any test fee.

Graduates of English-taught programmes, such as those at Cameroon's anglophone universities, can skip the test in one case. FOR-GHP Fellowship 2027: outbreak readiness for sub-Saharan Africa counts completed higher education in English as proof, provided you can document it, so request a language-of-instruction letter from your university now. ISATEC (MSc Marine Biology), University of Bremen: DAAD EPOS 2027 (closed) words its exemption narrowly. Unless you are a native English speaker whose last studies were taught wholly in English, budget for a C1 certificate.

Paperwork in French needs a plan too. Everything sent to CEES Fellowship Program Spring 2027: Research Stay in Switzerland (closed) must be in English and combined in a single PDF, so check each call's rules on translation before you pay for one.

Ask referees early. At IAIFI Postdoctoral Fellowship 2027-2030 at MIT (closed), reference letters must arrive by 7 October along with everything else, and The Image Centre Research Fellowships 2027 in Toronto for photography research (closed) expects the letters to travel inside the application email. Tell each referee the closing time in their own zone.

Then list what each call leaves unpaid. At Bayreuth Academy Fellowships in African Studies, Germany (closed), EUR 2,500 a month goes to fellows unpaid at home, provided their home institution or last funder confirms it. With AIAS Visiting Fellowships 2027: Unsalaried Research Visits in Denmark (closed), your employer must keep your salary running during the visit. Participants in Leading for Humanity 2027: Tutu Foundation Leadership Programme (closed) travel to South Africa at their own or a sponsor's expense.

Frequently asked questions

Does any call name Cameroon?

Yes, one: Mandela Washington Fellowship 2027 for Young African Leaders (closed). Eight more are open to Cameroon as part of Africa, sub-Saharan Africa or the developing world, and 16 have no nationality limit.

Can a Cameroonian student get a fully funded master's?

Yes, through two calls. Knight-Hennessy Scholars 2027: Fully Funded Graduate Study at Stanford (closed) covers tuition, living costs and a yearly flight at Stanford. ARC-GSSP Postgraduate Scholarships for African Students (closed) pays full tuition and a stipend for up to two years in one of its four African host countries.

Is French accepted anywhere?

Not in any listing that states a language. AGNES-BAYER Science Foundation Research Grant 2026 for PhD Students (closed), AGNES Intra-Africa Mobility Grants 2026 for PhD Researchers (closed) and CEES Fellowship Program Spring 2027: Research Stay in Switzerland (closed) insist on English. The 14 listings without a language rule may differ, so read their official pages first.

Is IELTS compulsory?

No single rule applies. FOR-GHP Fellowship 2027: outbreak readiness for sub-Saharan Africa states that IELTS is not required, and at Sustainable Renewable Energy Technologies MSc, Oldenburg: EPOS 2027 (closed) it is one of seven accepted tests.