The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT), is now accepting applications from Japanese university students for the 6th round of the TOBITATE! Ryugaku Japan scholarship for university students. The 6th round is aimed at those who will start their study abroad between 1 April 2017 and 31 October 2017. The application closes on 24th October 2016. MEXT has also announced the application schedule for the 7th round of the scholarship which is aimed at those who will start their study abroad between 18 August 2017 and 31 March 2018. For each round, the scholarship will be available for 500 students in 4 categories. For the details of each category and the application process, please see the attached PDF.

For background information on the scholarship, please see:
https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/applicati...

From the 6th round, the proportion of scholarships awarded to those without experience of living abroad for more than half a month has been increased from 10% to 20%.

Commentary:
From the 1st to 4th rounds, in total 179 students chose the UK as their study abroad destination, making the UK the second most popular destination after the US. The subject and destination institution of the awardees have not been released, but it is likely that the undergraduate students who chose the UK as their study destination are mostly on study abroad programmes for a duration of one semester to a year. Applicants apply through their home universities in Japan, and in many, but not all, cases, the scholarship has been used by students to study at partner universities. This shows the TOBITATE scholarship has contributed in part to the growth in the number of Japanese short-term students in the UK (https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/latest-ja...).

Below are some past examples published by the students’ home universities.

1. The University of Tokyo postgraduate student: Associate staff of Econometrics at CCRI (Countryside and Community Research Institute), UK (Nov 2014-Feb 2015)
2. Ochanomizu University 3rd year student: exchange student in Linguistics at the University of Manchester (Sep 2014 – Feb 2015)
3. Josai University 4th year doctoral students: UCL School of Pharmacy, Skin Research Group (Sep 2014 – Feb 2015)
4. Kyushu University 1st year master’s student: University of Oxford, Jenner Institute (June 2015 – Feb 2016)
5. Osaka University undergraduate student: one year programme in Development Studies, University of Leeds (July 2015 - June 2016)
6. Soka University undergraduate student: IBP at University of Westminster (Apr 2015 - Mar 2016)
7. Soka University undergraduate student: exchange student at Queen’s University Belfast (Sep 2015 – June 2016)

The selection results of the first 5 rounds shows the University of Tokyo has sent the largest number of students (107) abroad through this scheme, followed by Keio University (79), and Kyushu University and Waseda University (72).