UNESCO/Japan Young Researchers’ Fellowships Programme (UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi Research Fellowships Programme), Cycle 2026
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Who can apply: Citizenship is the hard gate here and it is a closed list, so check it first. Applicants must be nationals of one of the invited Member States or Associate Members named in Annex 1 of the call: 83 states and associate members, being 47 African Member States, Bahrain, 17 Asia-Pacific Member States and 2 Associate… What is funded: Ten fellowships in the 2026 cycle, each a lump sum of up to 10,000 US dollars for a research stay of no less than three and no more than nine months at a Japanese university or research institution, between February and December 2027. The grant covers international and domestic travel for the approved itinerary… Deadline: Deadline for Candidate Submission: 30 September 2026. Round: Cycle 2026.
Read the full call and apply on the official page: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), official page.
Who can apply
- Citizenship is the hard gate here and it is a closed list, so check it first. Applicants must be nationals of one of the invited Member States or Associate Members named in Annex 1 of the call: 83 states and associate members, being 47 African Member States, Bahrain, 17 Asia-Pacific Member States and 2 Associate Members, 16 Latin American and Caribbean Member States and 7 Associate Members, and Turkiye and Ukraine. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal are not on the 2026 list, so most of this site's readership cannot apply to this one. You must be no more than 40 years old at the time of application and hold at least a master's degree or equivalent in a field relevant to the proposed research. You must show enough reading and writing proficiency in the language of instruction or supervision at your proposed Japanese host institution, and you must already have acceptance from an academic supervisor there. Applications reach UNESCO only through your National Commission for UNESCO, and UNESCO states that only nominated applications are accepted, so your first action is to contact your National Commission rather than UNESCO.
Stage dates
Letters of nomination and all application documents must reach UNESCO from the National Commissions by this date. UNESCO prints it as midnight Paris time, and a midnight cut-off is not a usable clock time, so treat the working day of 29 September as your real limit.30 September 2026
The earlier step, and the one that actually binds you. UNESCO's own instructions tell candidates to submit to their National Commission for UNESCO 'at least 2 weeks before the required deadline'. UNESCO prints no calendar date against it, so none is asserted here, but it means your working deadline is around the middle of September, not the end.See the official page
Dates come from the funder's page for this round. When a round closes, the next round's dates replace these once the funder publishes them.