ARES International Training Scholarships 2027/2028 in Belgium

Last verified: 30 August 2026

ARES will still consider your application if you finished your degree nineteen years ago. The rule states that your qualifying degree must have been earned no more than 20 years before the programme begins, and if you have given birth to or adopted a child, ARES adds one extra year to that window for each child. Very few scholarship calls in Europe write a clause like that into their eligibility page, and once you notice it, the rest of this programme starts to make sense. This is not a scholarship built for people who graduated last summer. It is built for people who have been working ever since.

What the ARES International Training Scholarships actually are

ARES stands for Académie de Recherche et d’Enseignement Supérieur, the body that coordinates higher education institutions in the Wallonia Brussels Federation, the French speaking part of Belgium. Through its development cooperation programme, ARES funds professionals from partner countries to come to Belgium for a specific, short and highly targeted qualification, then return home and use it.

The 2027/2028 call funds ten programmes in total: one specialised bachelor’s degree, eight specialised master’s degrees, and one continuing training certificate. These are not general purpose degrees. Every one of them sits in an area where Belgium has institutional depth and where partner countries have a stated skills gap, which is why the list runs through public health policy, food chain safety, microfinance, disaster risk and cybersecurity governance rather than through the usual business and computer science catalogue.

The practical consequence for you as an applicant is that ARES is not scoring you the way a university admissions office would. It is asking a narrower question: will this specific qualification, given to this specific person, change what they can do when they go back to work?

Who ARES is really looking for

Read the criteria in order and a very particular candidate profile appears. You are somewhere in the middle of a working career, employed in a partner country, and you have hit a ceiling that a twelve month specialised qualification would lift.

To be admissible for the 2027/2028 call, you must:

• Be a permanent resident of one of the 32 eligible countries and be working there. Palestinian nationals are the stated exception to the residency requirement.
• Hold a graduate degree that satisfies the admission requirements of the programme you are applying to.
• Have earned that degree no more than 20 years before the programme starts, with one additional year allowed for each childbirth or adoption.
• Have at least two years of relevant professional experience in an eligible country, gained between finishing your degree and the application deadline.
• Be able to complete the whole application in the language the programme is taught in, and have a good working command of that language.
• Apply for one programme only.

That last point deserves a moment. You cannot hedge across three programmes and see which one bites. You choose one, and the choice itself becomes part of how you are judged, because a mismatch between your job history and the programme you picked is visible immediately to anyone reading the file.

The 32 eligible countries

Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, DR Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zimbabwe.

South America and the Caribbean: Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Peru.

Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Vietnam.

Asia: Palestine.

If your country is not on that list, this particular call is closed to you, and no amount of strong professional experience changes that. It is worth saying plainly, because a great deal of time gets wasted on applications that were never admissible in the first place.

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The language requirement that applicants underestimate

Look closely at the official programme list and you will see that most of the specialised master titles are written in French. Two of the programmes, International and Development Economics and the Advanced Master in Microfinance, are named in English. The Certificate in Cybersecurity Operations and Risk Governance is named in French.

ARES asks for a good command of the teaching language and asks you to complete the application in that language. It also recommends at least basic French for daily life, because you will be living in a French speaking region regardless of which language your classes run in. Ordering a phone contract, registering with the commune and dealing with a landlord all happen in French.

So before you commit to a programme, confirm its actual language of instruction with the host institution rather than guessing from the title. An applicant with strong professional experience who cannot follow lectures in French is not going to be selected for a French taught master’s, and that is a much better thing to discover in September than in October.

What the scholarship covers, and the one gap you should notice

For the specialised bachelor’s degree and the eight specialised master’s degrees, the ARES scholarship covers:

• International travel to Belgium and back
• A subsistence allowance for living costs
• Exceptional costs linked to your visa application
• Tuition fees
• Insurance costs

For the continuing training certificate, the coverage is different. The published list shows international travel, a subsistence allowance, indirect mission expenses and insurance costs. Tuition fees and visa costs are both marked on the official page as applying only to the bachelor’s degree and the specialised master’s degrees.

That distinction matters and it is easy to miss. If you are applying for the cybersecurity certificate, write to ARES before the deadline and ask directly whether tuition is charged and who pays it, and what “indirect mission expenses” covers in your case. Do not assume the word “scholarship” means the same package for every one of the ten programmes, because the official page itself says it does not.

One more honest note: ARES does not publish a figure for the monthly subsistence allowance on this call page. Any website quoting you an exact euro amount is either reading it from a different document or inventing it. Treat the funding as generous and comprehensive for degree programmes, and treat the precise numbers as something to confirm from the applicant’s guide or from ARES directly.

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The ten programmes open for 2027/2028

Specialised bachelor’s degree, 12 months maximum:

• Digital Integrated Supply Chain

Specialised master’s degrees, 12 months maximum:

• Human Rights
• Integrated Management of Health Risks
• International and Development Economics
• Microfinance (Advanced Master)
• Public Health Sciences, focused on the analysis and evaluation of international health policies, programmes and systems
• Food Chain Security Management
• Preventive Conservation and Collection Management
• Risk and Disaster Management in the Anthropocene

Continuing training, 6 months maximum:

• Certificate in Cybersecurity Operations and Risk Governance

Scan that list as a professional rather than as a student. A district health officer in Kenya, a customs and logistics manager in Senegal, a microfinance branch supervisor in Cambodia, a museum conservator in Peru, a disaster response coordinator in Nepal: each of them has one obvious programme on this list and eight that are not for them. If you cannot identify your own obvious programme within about thirty seconds, that is useful information about how strong your case will look.

How to apply through GIRAF

Applications run entirely through GIRAF, the ARES online platform. The process, as ARES sets it out, is:

1. Submit the account request form to create or recover your GIRAF access.
2. Log in to the GIRAF platform with those credentials.
3. Open the “Competitive Calls” section and select the application entry for International Training 2027/2028.
4. Complete every field marked with an asterisk. These are the mandatory ones.
5. Save your work as a draft at any point. You can return to it later through “My Tasks”.
6. Press “Submit my application” when the file is complete.
7. Confirm it arrived by checking “My Submitted Applications”.

Give yourself a few days between creating the account and the deadline. Account creation is a separate step that depends on ARES processing your request, and platform access problems on the final morning are not a category of emergency that anyone can solve for you at 11am Belgian time.

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The submit button is final

ARES states it plainly: once the application has been submitted, it can no longer be modified. There is no editing window, no “sorry, wrong attachment” email, no second version.

Treat the submit button the way you would treat sending a signed contract. Read the whole file once more, ideally out loud, before you press it. Better still, export or screenshot each completed section, read it the following morning with fresh eyes, and only then submit. The mistake that costs people this scholarship is almost never a bad career history. It is a truncated answer, a wrong file, or a date typed incorrectly in a form that could not be reopened.

Key dates for the 2027/2028 cycle

• Applications opened: 3 August 2026
• Application deadline: Friday 18 September 2026 at 12pm Belgian time (UTC+1, as written on the official page)

Three details are worth pulling out of that second line. The closing time is midday, not midnight, so an applicant planning to finish “on the last day” has lost half a day they may have assumed they had. And the time zone is Belgian, which means the effective cutoff in Nairobi is 2pm, in Kathmandu it is around 4:45pm, and in Lima it is 6am. Work out your own local cutoff now and write it down, because a submission that lands ninety minutes late is simply not assessed.

The third detail is a quiet trap. ARES writes the time zone as UTC+1, which is Belgium in winter. In mid September Belgium is normally running an hour ahead of that on summer time. The safest reading is to treat noon Belgian clock time on 18 September as your cutoff, which is one hour earlier than a literal UTC+1 calculation would give you, and to be finished well before either. If you are close to the line, ask ARES to confirm the exact closing moment in your own time zone.

The official call page also links an applicant’s guide and the reference call document as PDFs. Download both. They carry the operational detail that the summary page compresses, including anything specific to your chosen programme.

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How to make your application actually competitive

The eligibility criteria only get you into the pile. What lifts a file above the others in a development cooperation scholarship is a clear, believable line running from your current job to the programme to what you will do afterwards.

• Anchor everything in your employer’s reality. Name the unit you work in, the size of the problem you handle, and the specific gap in your organisation that this qualification fills. “I want to improve my skills” says nothing. “Our regional laboratory network has no one trained in food chain risk assessment, so contamination investigations are outsourced” says a great deal.
• Make your two years of experience legible. Job titles travel badly across countries. Describe responsibilities and outcomes rather than trusting a reader in Brussels to correctly interpret your grade or rank.
• Be concrete about the return. These awards exist so that trained people go back and apply what they learned. A realistic, modest, specific plan for your first year back is far more persuasive than a sweeping national reform ambition.
• Match the programme precisely. If your experience sits in public health administration and you apply for preventive conservation, no amount of good writing rescues the file.
• Prepare your documents early in the correct language. Translating a transcript takes longer than people expect, and the offices that do it also close on weekends.
• Write your own application. A file assembled by an agent reads like a file assembled by an agent, and it will not carry the specific institutional detail that makes a case credible.

Two warnings worth taking seriously

Nobody should be charging you to apply. The ARES process runs through the GIRAF platform directly. Any individual or agency offering to submit on your behalf for a fee, or promising a guaranteed selection, is at best selling you something you can do yourself and at worst running a straightforward scam. Scholarship fraud follows every major call, and it targets exactly the profile this scholarship attracts: capable, busy professionals who would rather delegate paperwork.

Verify dates and details on the ARES page before you rely on them. Aggregator sites, this one included, are summaries. Programme lists and closing times can be updated by the funder, and the funder’s own page is the only version that counts. The official call page sits on the ARES website, in the international training scholarships section for the 2027 and 2028 cycle.

Frequently asked questions

Does the 20 year degree rule run from my graduation date or from the date on the diploma?

The call page states only that the degree must have been earned no more than 20 years before the programme begins, without specifying which date it counts from. If you are anywhere near the boundary, do not guess. Email the ARES scholarships office before the deadline, tell them both dates on your record, and ask which one they apply. Getting a written answer costs you one email and protects an application you would otherwise be building on an assumption.

I am an eligible national but I am currently living or working abroad. Do I still qualify?

Nationality on its own does not carry the application. The call ties admissibility to where you live and where your recent professional experience was gained, so someone who holds an eligible passport but has spent the past several years employed in Europe or the Gulf is on difficult ground. Mixed situations are the genuinely uncertain ones: a temporary posting abroad while you remain formally employed by an organisation at home, or a research stay that has not changed your permanent residence. The page does not resolve those cases, so put your exact circumstances to the ARES scholarships office in writing and keep the reply. An answer from the funder is worth more than any interpretation you will find on a forum.

Can my spouse or children come with me to Belgium?

The call page does not address family accompaniment or family allowances at all. The funding items listed cover the scholarship holder. If you have dependants, ask ARES and the host institution directly what is permitted and what it would cost you, and factor the Belgian visa rules for accompanying family into that conversation. Plan on the assumption that any family costs are yours until someone official tells you otherwise.

What happens if my programme runs past the funded period?

The call sets the funded period as a ceiling rather than a promise, which is an important difference. If a thesis defence slips, if a placement is rescheduled, or if you need a resit session that falls outside the window, you should assume the extra weeks are financially yours unless ARES agrees otherwise in writing. Ask the host institution during the application stage how often their cohorts finish within the standard period, and ask ARES what its procedure is for an academic extension. Both answers are far cheaper to obtain now than in month eleven.

Can I keep my job while I do the programme?

Not in any practical sense. These are full time qualifications delivered in Belgium, running up to twelve months for the degree programmes and up to six months for the certificate, and the scholarship pays for your international travel and your living costs in Belgium precisely because you will be there. At the same time, ARES wants applicants who are currently employed in an eligible country. The way most successful candidates square that is study leave or an unpaid leave agreement negotiated with their employer in advance. Start that conversation early, because a supportive employer also strengthens the story your application tells.

What if I am not selected this time?

The call restricts you to one programme per cycle but says nothing about barring people who applied before. A rejection is usually information rather than a verdict: it often means the fit between your job and the programme was not obvious enough on paper, or that your file was strong on ambition and thin on specifics. If it happens, ask yourself which of those two it was, spend the following year building the experience that closes the gap, and check the ARES site when the next cycle opens.

The bottom line:

The ARES International Training Scholarships 2027/2028 are one of the better designed funding routes into Europe for working professionals from the 32 partner countries, precisely because they are not competing against the entire global graduate population. The filters are narrow and honest: you need residence and work in an eligible country, a graduate degree from within roughly the last two decades, two years of relevant experience, and the right language for your chosen programme.

If you read the criteria and recognised yourself, your next step is short and concrete. Open the official ARES call page today, download the applicant’s guide, request your GIRAF account so that access is not a last minute problem, and pick your one programme. The window closes at midday Belgian time on Friday 18 September 2026, and midday is earlier than most people plan for.