UM Social Justice Scholarship 2027 at Maastricht University, Netherlands

Last verified: 3 September 2026

Can you apply for the UM Social Justice Scholarship if you are not already living in Europe? Yes, and in fact the award was built for exactly that applicant. Maastricht University reserves this scholarship for students who hold a nationality outside the European Union, the European Economic Area, Switzerland and Surinam, and who have already done real work in human rights or the rule of law before they ever fill in the form.

Here is the whole picture before we go into detail. The UM Social Justice Scholarship funds one student, every academic year, for one specific master’s programme at Maastricht University in the Netherlands: Globalisation and Law. It runs for 13 months, it carries a tuition waiver plus a monthly stipend, and it comes with a room that you are required to accept. Applications open on 1 October 2026 and the scholarship form closes on 1 February 2027, but there is an earlier and much harder deadline sitting in front of it, because your admission file for the master’s programme has to be complete by 10 December 2026. Below you will find the eligibility rules in plain language, the two deadline dates and how they interact, the step by step application route, the full value of the award along with the costs it does not cover, the housing condition, how the selection panel narrows the field, and the practical mistakes that quietly end applications before anyone reads them.

What this scholarship actually is, and how small the field is

Maastricht University runs the UM Social Justice Scholarship as part of its Global Engagement Policy for 2024 to 2030, which puts weight on strengthening the rule of law. The university also holds a UNESCO Chair on Human Rights and Peace, and the scholarship sits inside that commitment rather than being a general purpose funding pot.

Two facts define it more than anything else:

• Only one full scholarship is awarded each academic year.
• Only one master’s programme qualifies, the full time master’s in Globalisation and Law at the Faculty of Law.

If you are looking at another Maastricht programme, this particular scholarship is closed to you no matter how strong your profile is. That is worth accepting early, because a lot of wasted effort in scholarship applications comes from people who read the funding page and skip the programme restriction.

The award is intended for applicants with what the university calls a proven contribution to human rights or the rule of law, made through activities inside and outside their studies. That phrasing matters. It is not asking what you care about. It is asking what you have already done.

Check yourself against the eligibility rules before anything else

Every requirement below has to be met. There is no partial qualification here, and the selection committee is not weighing these against each other.

• You hold a nationality of a country outside the EU, the EEA, Switzerland or Surinam, and you meet the conditions for a Dutch entry visa and residence permit.
• You do not hold dual nationality with an EU or EEA country or with Switzerland.
• If you already hold a residence permit for another Schengen country, that permit must remain valid until at least 2 September 2027. If it expires before then, you must apply from your home country through the MVV visa route instead.
• You have applied for the full time master’s programme Globalisation and Law for the 2027 and 2028 academic year, and your application file is complete and meets every admission requirement by 10 December 2026.
• You have already contributed to human rights or the rule of law through projects and initiatives, both within your studies and outside them.
• You meet the specific admission requirements of the master’s programme itself.
• You are not older than 35 years of age on 1 September 2027.
• Your most recent grade transcript shows a GPA of 7.5 out of 10 or higher.
• You submit one application only, for one scholarship only.

That last line deserves emphasis. Maastricht states plainly that documents cannot be added or replaced once the form is submitted. There is no second attempt, no correction window, and no polite email that fixes a missing transcript. Whatever you upload is your application.

Also Check: Doha Institute for Graduate Studies Scholarship 2027/2028 in Qatar

The two deadlines, and why the first one matters more

Most readers will note the scholarship deadline and forget the admission deadline. That is the wrong way round.

• 1 October 2026: applications open.
• 10 December 2026: your admission file for Globalisation and Law must be submitted in full through Studielink, meeting all admission requirements.
• 1 February 2027: the scholarship application form closes. By this date you must have met all registration requirements, with three exceptions that the university allows to remain outstanding: legal residence, tuition payment, and the hard copy of your diploma.
• February 2027: completeness checks, then complete applications go to the Faculty of Law.
• March 2027: the faculty ranks its top three candidates and the International Services Desk confirms them, then invites those candidates to an online interview.
• April 2027 into early May 2027: all candidates are informed of their status.
• First week of August 2027: the mandatory Pre Academic Training begins in Maastricht.

Read that sequence again and notice the gap. Between the admission deadline in December and the scholarship deadline in February there are roughly seven weeks, but the December date is the one that closes the door. You cannot rescue a late or incomplete admission file in January by working faster on the scholarship form. Plan backwards from 10 December 2026, not from February.

A sensible working timeline looks like this. Approach your referee in September or October 2026, because a good reference letter takes weeks and yours has to follow the university’s own guidelines. Order transcripts and any grading system documentation at the same time, since universities are slow in exam season. Get the Studielink application in during October so that your student number arrives early, and treat the whole of November as the buffer month for the documents that always go wrong.

Also Check: Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at the University of British Columbia

How to apply, step by step

Step one: apply for the master’s programme

You apply for Globalisation and Law through Studielink, the Dutch national application system. Once you have submitted, Maastricht issues you a student ID number. You need that number before you can complete the scholarship form, which is the practical reason the admission step cannot be left until later.

Your admission file has to be complete by 10 December 2026, and complete means every requirement listed on the programme page, not just the parts you found easy to gather.

You will also need an official document from your home university showing your most recent GPA, together with a document that explains how your grading system works. Maastricht is explicit that only applications with a GPA of 7.5 out of 10 or higher are accepted.

Step two: complete the scholarship application form

The scholarship form is separate, and you log in with your UM account to reach it. Applications are only accepted through this form. Documents must be uploaded in .doc, .docx or PDF format.

Here is what you upload:

• Curriculum vitae. Current, focused on education and work experience, and no longer than two A4 pages. Awards and prizes belong here, so do not leave them out through modesty.
• Letter of motivation. Maastricht provides a template and expects you to use it. The letter is meant to focus on your motivation for the scholarship, with emphasis on what you have already done to improve human rights.
• Proof of academic excellence. Your university transcript or an official document showing your cumulative GPA, plus the document explaining your grading scale.
• Personal statement of financial needs. This is where you explain why the award would change your situation, and you are invited to describe personal circumstances such as financial difficulty, sole parenting or caretaking responsibilities, a medical condition, a disability, or refugee status.
• A reference letter. Your referee must be a current or former professor, lecturer or employer. Family members are not accepted. The letter must be dated and written no earlier than February 2026, and it must follow the scholarship reference letter guidelines that Maastricht publishes. You upload it yourself; your referee cannot upload it for you.
• Contact details for one referee. You must give the relationship, a work telephone number including the country calling code, and a work or institutional email address. A personal email address such as a free webmail account causes the letter to be rejected.

The university states it may contact your referee to verify the reference. Treat that as a real possibility rather than a formality, and tell your referee to expect it.

What the award is worth, and what it does not cover

Now the money. The scholarship is one of the more generous packages available for a single master’s programme, and the university spells out the components rather than hiding behind the phrase “fully funded”.

• Living expenses: € 20,150 across 13 months, paid to the student by the UM International Services Desk.
• Health and liability insurance: € 700, arranged and paid by the university.
• Visa application costs: at cost, arranged and paid by the university.
• Tuition fees: at cost, arranged and paid by the university.
• Pre Academic Training costs: at cost, arranged and paid by the university. This training is a compulsory two week component that begins in the first week of August 2027.
• International Student Ambassador Programme: at cost for the first block only.

Maastricht notes that these amounts are subject to change for the 2027 and 2028 academic year, so treat them as the current figures rather than a contract.

The living allowance works out at € 1,550 per month, and the university publishes the budget it is based on:

• Housing: € 960
• Groceries and personal hygiene: € 160
• Telephone: € 60
• Travel: € 100
• Books and study materials: € 90
• Clothing, hobbies and going out: € 125
• Miscellaneous: € 55

That breakdown is unusually honest, and it tells you something useful: the stipend is calculated to cover a single student living modestly in Maastricht, not to leave a surplus.

The costs you still have to pay yourself

This is the part that gets skimmed, so read it slowly.

• Air tickets are not included. Your flight to the Netherlands is your own cost, and for many applicants that is a serious sum arriving at the worst possible moment.
• A cleaning fee of roughly € 75 is not covered and is paid directly to Maastricht Housing.

None of this makes the award weak. It is close to a complete package. But if you budget as though every single euro is taken care of, you will be caught out by the airfare, and that is a fixable problem only if you know about it in September rather than in July.

The housing condition you are agreeing to

The scholarship comes with a room, and accepting the scholarship means accepting the room. This is not optional and it is not negotiable. The accommodation is allocated to you until July 2028, and refusing it means the scholarship is cancelled.

The university does say that preferences connected to matters such as religious belief are taken into account when rooms are allocated, so it is worth stating those clearly rather than assuming they will be guessed.

For a single student arriving from outside Europe, guaranteed housing is a significant benefit rather than a restriction. Finding a room in a Dutch university city as an international arrival is genuinely difficult, and having it settled before you land removes one of the biggest sources of stress in the first month.

Also Check: DAAD STEM Master’s Scholarship in Germany 2027

How the selection actually narrows down

Understanding the funnel helps you write a stronger application, because you can see who is reading what.

1. After 1 February 2027, the UM International Services Desk checks whether applications are complete. Incomplete files stop here, and this is an administrative check, not a judgement of merit.
2. Complete applications go to the Faculty of Law during February 2027.
3. The faculty selects and ranks its top three applicants and sends them back for a final check in March 2027.
4. The International Services Desk confirms the selections by the end of March 2027 and invites those candidates to an online interview. For the interview you are asked to prepare an action plan explaining how studying at Maastricht will help you strengthen human rights or the rule of law, in your home country or elsewhere.
5. Candidates are informed of their status in April 2027.
6. The successful candidate signs and returns the award letter to accept the scholarship.

Two things follow from this. First, the completeness check filters people before any human weighs their achievements, which means an administrative slip costs you everything regardless of how strong your record is. Second, the decisive document is your evidence of contribution to human rights or the rule of law, because that is what the Faculty of Law is ranking on.

How to build an application that survives the top three cut

The source page tells you the rules. It does not tell you how to be competitive. Here is where the effort is best spent.

• Show outcomes, not intentions. “Volunteered with a legal aid clinic” is a line. “Handled intake for 40 tenants facing eviction and helped draft the template letter the clinic now uses” is evidence. The word “proven” in the eligibility criteria is doing real work.
• Make the action plan specific to your own context. The interview asks how this programme helps you strengthen the rule of law somewhere concrete. A candidate who names the institution, the community or the legal problem they intend to return to will always sound more credible than one describing global ambitions.
• Brief your referee properly. Send them the university’s reference letter guidelines, your CV, and a short note on which two or three achievements you would like them to speak about. A vague letter from an impressive professor is weaker than a precise letter from a lecturer who supervised your actual work.
• Do not let the financial needs statement drift into generalities. You are being asked about your circumstances. Be plain, specific and factual about them.
• Check your grading document twice. Many rejections in scholarship processes come from a transcript that a foreign administrator cannot interpret. The explanation of your grading system is not filler paperwork; it is what makes your GPA legible.
• Assemble everything, then submit. Because the form accepts one submission and nothing can be replaced afterwards, open it only when every file is final.

A word on fraud and paid agents

No legitimate university scholarship requires you to pay a private agent to submit your application. Everything described here is done through Studielink and Maastricht University’s own scholarship form, and the only official contact point for questions is the UM International Services Desk at scholarships@maastrichtuniversity.nl. If someone offers to guarantee you this award for a fee, that is a scam, and the guarantee is impossible on its face since only one award exists each year.

Frequently asked questions

I already hold a master’s degree. Is it still worth applying?

You are not automatically excluded, but preference is given to candidates who have not yet obtained a master’s degree. In a field competing for a single award, that preference is a meaningful disadvantage. If your existing master’s is in an unrelated area and your human rights record is exceptionally strong, an application can still make sense, but go in with realistic expectations.

My university does not grade out of 10. How is the minimum converted?

Maastricht states that the required GPA of 7.5 out of 10 is equivalent to a minimum of 75 percent out of 100, or 3 out of 4, depending on your grading system. This is why the separate document explaining your grading scale is compulsory rather than optional, and why it should come from your university rather than being written by you.

Does it cost anything to apply for the scholarship?

The scholarship application itself is submitted through the university’s own form. However, if your programme requires a handling fee as part of its admissions procedure, that fee is not covered by the International Services Desk, and you are responsible for paying it by 10 December 2026. Budget for it separately from the scholarship.

What does a waitlisted result mean in practice?

Candidates are told their status in April 2027, and that status is selected, waitlisted or rejected. Waitlisted applications are converted to either selected or rejected by May 2027 at the latest. So a waitlist here is short lived rather than an open ended limbo, and you should know one way or the other before the middle of the year.

Can my spouse or children come with me if I win?

The accommodation provided to scholarship students is explicitly described as unsuitable for partners, spouses or children. Since accepting the room is a condition of the award, an applicant planning to relocate with family should raise this with the International Services Desk before applying rather than after being selected.

Can I combine this with another scholarship or take a part time job?

The scholarship page does not address either point, so nothing here should be assumed in your favour. Email scholarships@maastrichtuniversity.nl and get the answer in writing before the 1 February 2027 deadline, particularly if another award you hold has its own rules about combining funding.

The bottom line

The UM Social Justice Scholarship is narrow, competitive and unusually well documented. One award, one programme, one shot at the form, and a selection process that comes down to what you have already built rather than what you promise to build.

If Globalisation and Law is genuinely the degree you want and you have a real record in human rights or the rule of law, the single most useful thing you can do this month is contact your referee and start the Studielink application, because the 10 December 2026 admission deadline is the one that decides whether you get to compete at all.

Check the official Maastricht University scholarship page before you submit, since the university notes that amounts may change for the 2027 and 2028 academic year: