KAS-SAIIA Scholarship Programme

Who can apply

Meet the admission requirements for a Master's degree at one of the programme's three partner universities: the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town, or Stellenbosch University
South African resident, or eligible for South African residency status
Under 30 years of age
Study one of the programme's five eligible fields: International Relations, Political Science, Economics, Law, or Journalism

A Master’s degree paired with a real internship

This one combines two things at once: a fully-funded Master’s degree at one of three South African universities, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town, or Stellenbosch University, and a full-year internship at SAIIA itself, giving scholars practical research and policy experience alongside their coursework. The funding covers full tuition plus a monthly stipend for living and accommodation, and scholars get mentorship from working professionals and access to the programme’s alumni network on top of that. KAS describes it as output-focused and designed to develop future leaders across public policy, academia, business, media and civil society, and states that alumni have gone on to influential positions in both the public and private sectors.

The eligible fields, and what “eligible” actually requires

Eligible fields are specific: International Relations, Political Science, Economics, Law, or Journalism. You need to meet your chosen university’s own admission requirements for a Master’s in one of those fields, be a South African resident (or eligible for residency), and be under 30.

The round has closed, whatever KAS’s own event page still says

The 2027 round closed 1 September 2026, and this is a case worth being precise about: KAS’s own event page still headlines the scholarship as “now open,” listing the same 1 September deadline as though it were still ahead, even after that date has passed. The actual application portal linked from that page tells a different story, stating outright that applications are now closed. When a funder’s own pages disagree like this, the live application form is the more trustworthy of the two, not the descriptive event page sitting on top of it. No date for a 2028 round has been announced.

Part of a wider KAS regional programme

The scholarship sits inside KAS’s Regional Programme Political Dialogue for Sub-Saharan Africa (PolDiSSA), which more broadly promotes democratic engagement within political parties and civil society, and youth involvement in politics, across the region. For scholarship-specific queries, KAS names a direct contact, project coordinator Christiaan Endres at christiaan.endres@kas.de, separate from PolDiSSA’s own general contact address.