The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT), is now  accepting applications from Japanese university students for the 4^th round of the TOBITATE! Ryugaku Japan scholarship for university students (application closes on 30^th October 2015). The scholarship will be available for 500 students in 4 categories. 

For the details of each category and the application process, please follow the link below:
http://www.britishcouncil.or.jp/data/TOBITATE-Ryugaku-Scholarship-2015-4...

For background information on the scholarship, please see;
https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/applications-now-open-3rd-round-of-tobitate-ryugaku-japan-scholarship-university

The students’ response to the scholarship application has been slower than the previous round. In an effort to boost applications MEXT decided to loosen some of the requirements:

• 10% of the scholarships will be awarded to those who do not have experience of living abroad for more than a month.
• 10% of  the scholarships  will be granted to students whose household income exceeds a predetermined threshold.
•  At the time of application, students are no longer required to provide specific details of hands-on activities such as internships, volunteer work, fieldwork and project-based learning. Applicants are, however, still required to include general plans for such activities in their applications.

It is worth disseminating this opportunity to Japanese students (especially summer school, exchange or year abroad) who are interested in studying at your institution but find it difficult financially.

We have learnt from MEXT that for the 1^st and 2^nd rounds, the UK was the second most popular destination behind the US among students who were awarded the scholarship  For the first round, MEXT received 1,290 applications in total and the scholarships were awarded to 404 students. The UK was the destination for 30 out of 404 students (Natural sciences/cross-disciplinary course:17 World-leading institutions course: 11, Unique challenge course: 2). There were 784 applications for the second round and 256 students were offered a scholarship, 29 of whom (Natural sciences/cross-disciplinary course:13, World-leading institutions course: 7, Unique challenge course: 9) went to the UK.

According to MEXT, most of the students awarded the TOBITATE scholarship participated in existing programmes offered at partner universities. This was partly because their applications needed to be made through and approved by their home universities prior to submission. We expect that the TOBITATE scholarship has served as a financial support for Japanese students for whom the cost to study at partner universities in the UK had previously been a challenge.