Two separate applications running in parallel
The application here is genuinely two separate processes running in parallel, not one. You submit an online application to TaiwanICDF itself, and you separately have to meet the admission requirements of the specific partner university and programme you are targeting. Your own country’s Taiwan embassy or representative office conducts the first review before anything reaches TaiwanICDF centrally, so building a relationship with that office early is worth more here than with most scholarships on this site.
What full coverage actually includes
Coverage is close to comprehensive: round-trip economy airfare, dormitory housing, tuition and credit fees, mandatory insurance, textbooks subject to approval, and a monthly allowance that scales with level, NT$15,000 for a bachelor’s degree, NT$18,000 for a master’s, and NT$20,000 for a PhD, paid directly into a local bank account each month. This isn’t Taiwan’s only government scholarship track: the separate Taiwan Scholarship Program run by the Ministry of Education uses a different eligible-country list and application process, so check both if you’re not sure which fits your citizenship.
The bachelor’s-level catch that doesn’t apply at master’s or PhD level
One eligibility line is easy to miss and eliminates a specific group of applicants: bachelor’s-level places are restricted to citizens of countries that hold diplomatic relations with Taiwan, a shorter list than the full set of TaiwanICDF partner countries. If you are targeting a bachelor’s programme specifically, check that your country is on that narrower list before you invest time in an application, since eligibility for master’s and PhD programmes is broader than for undergraduate study.
A fund built on decades of Taiwan’s own technical-cooperation history
TaiwanICDF’s own institutional history explains why this scholarship exists in its current form. Taiwan sent its first group of agricultural specialists abroad, to Vietnam, in 1959, when Taiwan was itself still a developing country; that grew through the 1960s and 70s into a standing technical-cooperation agency working across Africa and beyond. The government consolidated that decades-long track record into TaiwanICDF as an independent fund in 1996. The scholarship programme itself has run since 1998 through partnerships with Taiwanese universities under what TaiwanICDF calls the Taiwan International Cooperation Alliance, and the fund is explicit that the goal cuts both ways: supporting the socio-economic development of partner countries while also internationalising Taiwan’s own universities and broadening Taiwanese students’ global exposure.