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Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Cambridge

University of Cambridge, with the Mastercard Foundation · United Kingdom

Level
Master’s only
Where
United Kingdom
Money
Full tuition and a monthly maintenance allowance
Fields
Law, Medicine, Engineering

In short

A master’s award at Cambridge for a citizen of an African country who lives in Africa. It is not a PhD award and not a bachelor’s award. Sierra Leone is on the list of countries whose application fee is waived automatically.

Law, medicine and engineering master’s courses can be proposed, except the ones Cambridge has taken off this scholarship. The excluded professional courses are the MBA, the Master of Corporate Law, the Master of Finance, and the Master of Accountancy.

Who can apply

  • You are a citizen of an African country and you live in Africa, unless you are away only temporarily for study or work, or you are a refugee or internally displaced.
  • You meet the academic entry standard of the Cambridge master’s you name. Check your degree on Cambridge’s international qualifications page before you spend the month writing.
  • The course is not an excluded one.

Papers they ask for

  • The Cambridge postgraduate application, with the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program selected under funding.
  • A scholarship statement on your education and work, your leadership, what the master’s lets you do, and how you would contribute to a sustainable future in Africa.
  • Transcripts and the other documents the course lists. Outstanding papers, if an offer is made, are due by 31 July.

What it pays

  • Full tuition
  • A monthly maintenance allowance
  • The wider support described on the Cambridge scholars page

How to apply

  1. Pick the course in the postgraduate directory and read its funding deadline. It is usually 8 December 2026 or 6 January 2027, at 11:59pm UK time, and it is earlier than the ordinary deadline.
  2. Apply. For Sierra Leone the application fee is waived when you submit. You do not send a separate fee-waiver form.
  3. Inside the application, opt in to funding and select this programme. Write the scholarship statement in that form.
  4. Choose a college. Departments select between December and February. Offer letters go out in late March or early April.

Read this before you file

  • If your country were not on the automatic-waiver list you would have had to request a fee waiver by 18 November 2026. Sierra Leone is on the list. Do not wait on that form.
  • Full tuition and a monthly maintenance allowance are what Cambridge states. Read the scholars page for anything beyond that before you assume flights and a visa are included. Gates Cambridge is a different award, with a different package.
  • Applications for 2027/28 are open. A 2026 advert is the wrong year.

Checked against the provider’s page on 11 October 2026. If this note and that page disagree, the provider is right. Lanbuk does not award this scholarship.