Supporting scholarships

Scholarships are essential for ensuring we can bring the best and brightest students to SOAS in an increasingly competitive market and regardless of their financial situation. 

Support for students is more important now than ever before. Using surpluses in recent years, SOAS has invested significantly in our endowment which has grown to £10m, enabling us to extend more financial support to our students. This, along with support from our alumni and supporter communities, has meant we have awarded more than 450 scholarships in the last decade. 

Scholarship Fund

Unrestricted gifts to the scholarship fund give us the freedom to respond to the priorities of our students.  

These unrestricted gifts help open the doors of SOAS to exceptional students from around the world. Scholarships are awarded to individuals who are not only academically outstanding, but who also bring unique perspectives, lived experience, and a passion for creating positive change. Some awards support students from underrepresented regions or communities; others help attract future leaders in their fields. Whatever their background, these gifts remove financial barriers so students can fully focus on their studies — and thrive.

Sanctuary Scholarship

SOAS launched the Sanctuary Scholarships Appeal in 2015 to improve access to higher education for asylum seekers and refugees during a climate of increasing hostility toward global migration, the first UK University to pioneer such a scholarship. The scheme supports displaced students who do not have access to public funds and are unable to access higher education. 

It is designed to support those who might otherwise be blocked from embarking on a university degree, especially those with precarious forms of immigration status or who do not have access to Student Finance, and people taking their first steps into Higher Education.

Dr Hettie Elgood Scholarship

SOAS Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art alumni, Gretchen Welch and Ida Chow, set up the Dr Hettie Elgood Scholarship in 2018 to honour their teacher and friend, Dr Hettie Elgood, MBE, Founder and Director Emerita of the Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art. They hope that those who study under this scholarship will go on to contribute to the course by lecturing or tutoring in the future, or by promoting the study of Asian art through other platforms.

This is the sixth year the scholarship has been offered, which has been made possible by further donations.