Admission requirements

The applicant is required to submit a transcript which shows all the passed courses, their credits and grades received so far.

A diploma supplement, if applicable, gives additional information on the received degree. It is included in the degree certificate. When the applicant provides the degree certificate in the online application form, all the pages of the documents that contain any text, serial numbers, stamps, etc, need to be scanned.

The minimum scores of the two accepted English language tests are stated below.

• TOEFL (iBT): minimum score 93
• IELTS (Academic): minimum score 6,5 (with no individual score below 6)

If the applicant fulfills the exemption criterion, she/he can instead upload her/his academic document, where the language of instruction is mentioned, to the online application form.

Please upload a color copy of your valid passport in the online application form.

If, however, your passport has expired, please upload a copy of your current expired passport to the online application form together with a copy of another ID card which is valid and in English (or officially translated in English).

Based on the nature of the scholarships that will be offered starting from 2025, the certificate of residence will no longer be required from the applicants.  The EDISS consortium updated the admission requirements accordingly 30.10.2024.

Applicants are required to use the EDISS CV template. This version can be filled in on the computer.

The EDISS CV is divided into 6 sections which are

1. Personal information
2. Education
3. Relevant work and/or entrepreneurial experience
4. Relevant international experience
5. Relevant other experience
6. Other skills and accomplishments

Instructions:

• There is room for 2 educations. If the applicant has only one education, s/he shall leave the other field for education empty.
• The applicant can indicate a maximum of 4 experiences under section "Relevant work and/or entrepreneurial experience". The applicant should give additional information on the experience/s in the empty space between the different experiences. The applicant can e.g. write why the listed experience is relevant for EDISS and what s/he learned from the experience. The applicant is not required to fill in the maximum number of experiences. If the applicant has no experiences to be put in this section, s/he shall leave the section empty.
• The applicant can list a maximum of 3 experiences under the sections "Relevant international experience" and "Relevant other experience". The applicant should give additional information on the experience/s in the empty space between the different experiences. The applicant can e.g. write why the listed experience is relevant for EDISS and what s/he learned from the experience. The applicant is not required to fill in the maximum number of experiences. If the applicant has no experiences to be put in these sections, s/he shall leave the section/s empty.
• In the last section, "Other skills and accomplishments", the applicant can list any other skills and accomplishments that have not already been mentioned previously. The applicant can also list her/his hobbies in this section. There is room for a maximum of 3 skills/accomplishments/hobbies in this section. The applicant is not required to fill in the maximum number of skills/accomplishments/hobbies. If the applicant has no experiences to be put in this section, s/he shall leave the section empty.

General instructions

• The answers cannot exceed the space indicated in the different sections.
• The applicant is responsible to decide her/himself what information s/he wants to give and in which categories these experiences shall be put.
• The applicants should not indicate the same experience in several categories.
• The CV will be assessed as a whole. Applicants can see the evaluation criteria here.

The recommendation letters must contain a signature, and preferably an official university letter head and a university stamp. The EDISS programme office only accepts academic recommendation letters. The recommendation letters can be submitted directly by the applicant to the online application form.

In the case that the professor/lecturer only accepts to send the recommendation letter directly to the EDISS programme office himself/herself, this is accepted as long as the letters arrive to ediss@abo.fi within the application deadline. Letters that arrive later will not be reviewed and taken into account when evaluating the application.

If the letters are sent by email directly from the higher education institution, the subject line of the email must follow the form stated below:

RL_last name of the applicant_first name of the applicant_application ID

Applicants are required to submit a motivational video where they answer the following:

• What is your main motivation to apply for the EDISS programme and why should you be chosen to the programme?
• Describe briefly your main scientific area of interest in the fields covered by EDISS.
• Explain how your background/trajectory makes you suitable for EDISS.

The length of the motivation video should be 2 minutes (+/- 3o seconds). The most common video formats such as mp4, mpeg, ogg and mov are accepted. The motivation video is the only accepted attachment in the online application form that does not follow the pdf-requirement that is in place for all the other attachments.

In the online application form applicants have the possibility to list any relevant experiences in the following categories:

• Professional and/or entrepreneurial experiences
• International experience
• Other experiences (e.g. volunteer experience, community involvement, summer school).

All the experiences must be relevant for the EDISS programme and it is up to the applicant to decide the category in which the experience belongs to. Applicants are required to provide certificates of the experiences that they list in the online application form.