President's Graduate Fellowship (NUS)

Who can apply

Admitted to, or applying for, a full-time PhD programme at NUS (not open to Master's candidates)
Nominated by the department or faculty after indicating interest and fulfilling any additional scholarship-specific requirements inside the same PhD application (through GradApp); there is no separate fellowship portal, form or essay beyond that
Demonstrated exceptional promise or accomplishment in research
Open to Singapore Citizens, Singapore Permanent Residents and international students alike; for the Fellowship funded by the Lee Kong Chian Scholarship specifically, preference is given to candidates who also show leadership ability and a commitment to community service

You do not apply for this fellowship as its own competition

There is no separate fellowship-only portal, essay or form. The fellowship rides on top of a regular NUS PhD application: within GradApp, the same system used for PhD admission, applicants indicate interest and complete any additional scholarship-specific requirements the faculty asks for, and the department then reviews its incoming PhD candidates and nominates the strongest ones. NUS’s own Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences page states plainly that the award “is by nomination only,” which confirms the department, not the applicant, makes the final call. The practical task for an applicant is the same either way: put together the strongest possible PhD application to the chosen NUS department, complete with a well-argued research statement, references and a CV, rather than draft anything specific to the fellowship itself.

The stipend has more layers than the headline figure suggests

The three-tier stipend (S$4,800, S$4,400 or S$3,900 depending on citizenship or residency status) is only the starting point. From the 2023/24 intake onward, NUS added its Research Incentive Award on top: an extra monthly allowance for the full four years, plus a one-time research allowance once a scholar passes their PhD Qualifying Examination in the second year of candidature. NUS reserves the right to adjust or revise that monthly allowance at any time. Singapore Citizens also receive CPF (Central Provident Fund) contributions at the employer rate in addition to the stipend. None of these additions are unusual for NUS but they are easy to miss if a reader only looks at the headline stipend number quoted by aggregator sites.

What the fellowship asks of you in return

International recipients admitted from the 2014/2015 academic year onward are required to complete 312 hours of teaching duties under the Graduate Assistantship Programme over the life of the award, according to NUS’s own terms. Separately, NUS’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences states that recipients must remain in Singapore for the duration of the award, except during approved leave, and that a department may also ask a scholar to assist with teaching or departmental work more generally. None of this is a side note: it is real, unpaid service time layered on top of the PhD itself, and worth weighing against the stipend before accepting.

Renewal is not automatic

The fellowship is initially awarded for one year, not four years up front, and may then be renewed each semester based on the scholar’s performance in previous semesters and the Faculty’s recommendation, with four years as the maximum total length. A scholar who falls behind on research milestones, in other words, can lose the fellowship partway through a PhD rather than having it guaranteed to the end.

The real decision is which department to apply to, not whether to apply for the fellowship

Because the fellowship is not a separate competition, the meaningful choice for an applicant is which NUS PhD programme fits their research interests and academic background, since admission and nomination happen together through the same departmental process. Trying to time an application around a single “fellowship deadline” does not really make sense here. Instead, the right approach is to identify the department, check that department’s own PhD application deadline for the intake the applicant wants (August or January), and apply well ahead of it, since nomination decisions are folded into the normal admissions review.

How it sits next to Singapore’s other flagship PhD fellowship

NUS is one of two Singapore universities offering a university-wide, all-fields PhD fellowship at a broadly similar funding level; the other is the Nanyang President’s Graduate Scholarship (NPGS) at Nanyang Technological University. Since both offer comparable stipends and both require nomination rather than a separate application, the more useful comparison for an applicant is not the funding amount but which university has the stronger research group and supervisor in their specific field, since that is what actually drives the nomination decision at either institution.