Study Abroad on ResearchBoard — scholarships, funded professors, and active grants in the US and Canada
There are two ways to get a funded Master's or PhD abroad:
- Win a scholarship — from a government or a university.
- Get hired by a professor who has research money and needs a research assistant.
Our new Study Abroad section helps with both, in four tabs. Everything is free and links to the official sources.
🎓 Scholarships — with the official website on every card
The Scholarships tab lists fully funded and partial scholarships for international Master's and PhD students around the world — Chevening, DAAD, Erasmus Mundus, MEXT, Global Korea Scholarship, Chinese Government Scholarship, Fulbright, Swedish Institute, Stipendium Hungaricum, Türkiye Scholarships and more.
Each card shows:
- What it covers — tuition, monthly stipend, flights, insurance
- Who can apply and the level (Master's, PhD)
- When to apply — the deadline when it is confirmed, otherwise the usual timing
- An Apply on official site button and the website address
You can filter by country, level, fully funded only, open or opening soon, and open to Bangladesh. A Closing soon bar at the top shows what to prepare first — for example, the Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals close on 15 January 2027.
Every scholarship link is checked automatically each month.
💰 Funded professors — 10 countries where professors pay students
In many countries a Master's or PhD student is paid from a professor's research grant. This tab covers 10 of them: Canada, Germany, South Korea, Japan, China, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Pick a country and type your research topic. You will see:
- How funding works there — is a funded Master's common? a funded PhD? do you email a professor or apply to an advertised position?
- How much research is funded — the share of papers that name a funder
- Researchers with funded papers on your topic, at that country's universities
- The top funders and top universities for your topic
Example: in South Korea, for solar cells, 8,434 of 10,140 papers (83%) were funded — and you can see exactly which professors wrote them.
🇺🇸 US active grants — professors who have money right now
A professor with an active grant has money to pay research assistants. This tab searches official US government grant databases:
- NSF (science and engineering) — searched live
- NIH (health and biology) — collected weekly for 40 popular health topics
Each result shows the professor, the university, the grant title, the amount, and until when the grant runs. For example, a search for solar cells finds 170 active NSF awards.
Even before you search, the tab shows the newest grants of the last 60 days — new grants often mean new positions.
🇨🇦 Canada active grants
The same idea for Canada, from official open data:
- NSERC — science and engineering grants, refreshed weekly by topic
- CIHR — health research grants, searchable by any word
Grants are shown in Canadian dollars, with the professor, university, grant title and end date. In Canada, a professor's NSERC Discovery grant is the usual way thesis-based MSc and PhD students are paid.
New: the US universities map
Planning to study in the US? Our new US universities map shows all 1,863 US universities that award master's degrees (764 also award PhDs), with each one's graduate application fee, tuition for international students, number of international students, top programs and research output. Read more in our post about the map.
How to use it — a simple plan
- Pick a country using the Funded professors tab — see if funded positions are common there.
- Shortlist universities — for the US, use the US universities map.
- Find professors working on your topic — with active grants (US and Canada tabs) or funded papers.
- Write to them. Our guide How to find a research supervisor in 5 minutes has an email template that gets replies.
- Apply for scholarships in parallel — check the Closing soon bar every week.