Croucher Scholarships for Doctoral Study

The awards offered by the Croucher Foundation Limited (“the Foundation”) are intended to enable applicants who are permanent residents of Hong Kong to devote themselves to a period of full-time study or research in natural sciences, medicine or technology in approved academic institutions outside Hong Kong.

Scholar’s responsibilities

Scholars must be full-time students.

All applicants must disclose offers of financial support received, or likely to be received, from other sources. Applicants and scholarship holders must keep the Foundation informed of the progress of applications for support from other sources. Croucher Scholarships are on occasion, and at the discretion of the Foundation as an exception, allowed to be held concurrently with other minor awards.

Once a Croucher Scholarship has been offered to an applicant, the Foundation reserves the right to ask the successful applicant to withdraw applications for support from certain other sources. If the student still chooses to proceed with such applications despite the Foundation’s request, it will be deemed that he/she opts to give up the Foundation’s offer which will accordingly be withdrawn.

The Foundation occasionally gives approval for Croucher scholars to be remunerated for a limited amount of teaching or research responsibilities but such Scholars must seek approval in advance from the Foundation which may in its absolute discretion modify the terms of the Scholarship.

Scholars who finish their studies/research prior to the expiry date of the awards must report to the Foundation, and are liable to return on a pro-rata basis any excess maintenance allowance and other allowances to the Foundation within one month upon the completion of studies/research.

Scholars who have to terminate their studies for whatever reason must first seek approval from the Foundation at least three months in advance, and return the whole or part of the award at an amount at the discretion of the Foundation. Failure to do so will have legal consequences.

All awards will be subject to:

• a satisfactory medical examination by a medical practitioner,
• and the candidate’s acceptance by the institution in which he/she proposes to work. 

How to apply

All applications should be submitted to the Croucher Foundation online. For the 2021-22 selection exercise, applications should be submitted by 5 p.m. (Hong Kong time) on 15 November 2025 at the latest.

While proceeding with your application, please invite two referees to provide signed letters of reference for you (with your full name) on letterhead to be sent direct to cfadmin@croucher.org.hk (in PDF), or fax to (852) 2730 0742 by the deadline above.

Please make sure the following documents in PDF format (each not exceeding 8MB) have been uploaded to your application:

1. a document, up to 6 pages in length, including:
   1. a proposal describing the research to be undertaken which should include the names of potential supervisors and their research groups. To ensure fairness in competition to all applicants, a proposal once submitted cannot be amended;
   2. a description of the candidate’s research experience, and a list of publications;
2. copies of the applicant’s HKCEE and HKALE or HKDSE certificates (or equivalent) and copies of official transcripts of his/her university records;
3. copies of reprints of the applicant’s three most significant publications (if applicable); and
4. one set of relevant documentation to provide proof of identity in respect of the applicant’s status as a permanent resident of Hong Kong which is pre-requisite to the award. (For applicants who choose to use their ID card copies, please make sure that both sides of the ID card must be provided. The Foundation is not prepared to take an application any further if there is doubt of the residential status of an applicant upon incomplete documentation.)

All applicants should be aware that the Croucher awards are highly competitive and there are always more applicants than awards available. Short-listed candidates are required to attend an interview in March/April 2020. An applicant who is not notified of the outcome of his application by late May 2020 may assume that it is unsuccessful. The Foundation does NOT provide critiques for unsuccessful applications.