Padua International Excellence Scholarship Programme

Up to 76 scholarships for international students taking an English-taught bachelor's, single-cycle or master's degree at Padua: a €8,000 gross cash grant plus a full tuition-fee exemption each year, awarded automatically through the degree application itself.

Checked 19 Sept 2026Share

Who can apply

Must not hold Italian citizenship, unless it is dual citizenship
Must hold a non-Italian secondary school diploma (bachelor's/single-cycle applicants) or a foreign degree (master's applicants)
Must not be resident in Italy at the time of application
Must apply to an English-taught degree at the University of Padua by that degree's own deadline
Must not hold another scholarship, and must complete enrolment, to actually receive the money

There is no separate scholarship application

The whole mechanism runs through the degree application itself. Padua’s own page is explicit: “The application for the degree course of your interest automatically makes you eligible to compete for the award of the scholarship provided you meet the requirements listed above. Therefore, there is no need to submit a separate application or any additional documentation.” Each degree course’s own Teaching Committee then selects who gets a scholarship, based on academic excellence and prior academic record, and results are published according to the timetable in that programme’s own Admission Notice.

A cash grant on top of a fee exemption, not just one or the other

The award itself is a genuinely dual benefit: €8,000 gross a year in cash, paid in two instalments of €4,000, plus a full exemption from student fees for that year. Recipients are not entirely fee-free, though: they still owe the regional fee and the revenue stamp each year, both of which sit outside the exemption. The cash and the exemption run for up to two years on a master’s or three years on a bachelor’s or single-cycle degree; anyone still enrolled after that pays ordinary tuition for the rest of their degree.

Keeping it depends on credits, not just enrolment

Padua ties renewal to a concrete academic bar: recipients must earn at least 20 CFU (the Italian ECTS-equivalent credit unit) by 30 November of the following academic year. Falling short, transferring to another university, or withdrawing from studies all trigger revocation, and revocation comes with a real financial consequence: repayment of whatever instalments have already been paid out. Anyone accepting this award should treat the credit threshold as a hard deadline to plan a first-year course load around, not a formality.

Check back in November, not now

The one firm date on the page points forward, not backward: the next Call for Applications, covering whichever academic year it funds, is due in November 2026. Nothing about amounts, eligibility specifics, or deadlines for that round is guaranteed to match the current text until that call is actually published, so treat this entry as a description of how the programme works rather than a live deadline to apply against today.