You need a place before you need ADB
This scholarship works backwards from how most funding works, in much the same way the World Bank’s Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program does: you apply to, and need at least admissibility from, one of the Designated Institutions before ADB itself enters the picture. There is no single deadline because each institution runs its own intake on its own timeline. The programme’s guidance is to apply at least six months before you want to start, and to check the deadline your chosen institution publishes.
About 135 scholarships are available each year across all of the institutions, so the number of places at any one of them is small.
Where you can study
ADB counts 27 Designated Institutions. Its list has 26 rows, and the likely reason for the difference is one row that pairs the International Rice Research Institute with the University of the Philippines Los Baños. Seventeen rows are in Japan: Hitotsubashi University, International University of Japan, Keio University, Kobe University, Kyoto University, Kyushu University, Nagasaki University, Nagoya University, the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Ritsumeikan University, Saitama University, Institute of Science Tokyo, the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, the University of Tokyo, Tohoku University and Tsukuba University.
The rest are spread across the region: the University of Hong Kong, IIT Delhi, Lahore University of Management Sciences, the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, the International Rice Research Institute with the University of the Philippines Los Baños, the National University of Singapore, two institutions in Bangkok, Thammasat University and the Asian Institute of Technology, and the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii.
Check the programme, not only the university
For many institutions the list names specific graduate schools or programmes, not the whole university. Keio, for example, is listed for four of its graduate programmes, and the University of Tokyo for civil engineering, urban engineering, public policy, environmental studies and international health. Kyushu, Nagoya, Tohoku, Tsukuba, Saitama, Hitotsubashi and Kobe are each listed for named programmes too. The requirement is admission to an approved master’s course, so confirm your exact programme appears on ADB’s list before you spend time on an application.
Who it is built for
You need a bachelor’s degree with a strong academic record and at least two years of full-time, paid professional work completed after that degree, not during it. Combined with the age limit of 35, this is built for early to mid-career professionals from ADB’s developing member countries, not students moving straight out of an undergraduate degree. You must be a national of an ADB developing member country that is also eligible for Japanese ODA scholarships, and not a dual citizen of a developed country.
What it pays and what you owe
The award is close to comprehensive: full tuition, a monthly living and housing allowance, books, medical insurance and travel. It runs for one year with a possible extension to a second, conditional on satisfactory academic performance, so the maximum for a master’s is two years. A thesis grant may be available for scholars engaged in research. In exchange, scholars agree to return to their home country and work there for at least two years after finishing, which is worth weighing against programmes with no such obligation if your plans afterward are less certain.