Austria launches the Erhard Busek Scholarship for students from non-European developing countries
The OeAD, the Austrian Agency for Education and International Cooperation, is launching the Erhard Busek Scholarship on behalf of the BMBWF, offering students from non-European developing countries the opportunity to complete a full master's degree in Austria (24 months). With a monthly grant of €1,300 and a one-time travel allowance of up to €1,200, the scholarship supports particularly well-qualified graduates – in STEM subjects and primarily in English-language degree programmes. The Erhard Busek Scholarship aims to enable highly qualified students from countries such as India, Indonesia or Vietnam to access a master's programme in Austria. The prerequisite for the award is permanent admission to an Austrian university or university of applied sciences.
The scholarship holders not only benefit from the excellent range of courses on offer, but as skilled workers they also receive support in entering the domestic labour market after graduation and represent valuable resources for Austrian companies.
Federal Minister of Education, Science and Research Martin Polaschek emphasises the importance of funding highly qualified students from non-European third countries: ‘This measure not only strengthens Austria as a centre of science and research, but also promotes the attractiveness and internationalisation of our universities. In addition, we are also making an important contribution to training highly qualified specialists for our domestic labour market.’
Jakob Calice, managing director of the OeAD, emphasises the importance of this scholarship: ‘With this scholarship, we are not only increasing the internationality of the study location, we are also bringing highly qualified young people to Austria with a high potential for integration into the Austrian labour market. We know from a study by Statistics Austria, for example, that around 70% of international graduates from third countries in the field of computer science and communication technology remain in Austria after their studies.’
About Erhard Busek
Erhard Busek (1941–2022), former Austrian Minister of Education and Science and Vice Chancellor, is inextricably linked with the Europeanisation and internationalisation of the Austrian higher education and research landscape. As a fervent European, he enabled Austrian higher education institutions to participate in EU education programmes even before Austria's official participation in these. He saw the political upheavals in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe as an opportunity and worked tirelessly as a bridge-builder for dialogue and reconciliation.
Austria now not only participates very successfully in the EU Research Framework Programmes and plays a very active role in the European Higher Education and Research Area, but continues to be a key player in regional cooperation in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe and in the EU Danube Region. In times of political upheaval, it is now also important to build new bridges, to engage in dialogue with partners outside Europe on an equal footing and to support their reforms in education and research through expertise and exchange.
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