Funai Overseas Scholarship
The Funai Foundation for Information Technology (FFIT) was established on April 25, 2001 with an endowment by Tetsuro Funai,
the founder of Funai Electric Co., Ltd. Currently, the Foundation has two types of awards: grants and scholarships.
The grant program recognizes outstanding achievements of young researchers at Japanese universities, while scholarships support tuition
and living expenses of students while they pursue Ph. D. degrees at overseas universities.
Applications for both programs are open to the general public, and successful candidates are chosen by a Selection Committee.
Let us take a closer look at the Funai overseas scholarship program. Today there are far fewer Japanese students pursuing Ph. D. degrees
at world-class overseas universities than there are Chinese, Korean, and Indian students, and the Funai overseas scholarship program was set up
specifically to encourage greater numbers of Japanese students to study abroad and earn a Ph. D. at foreign universities.
Funai overseas scholarships cover two full years of tuition plus a stipend of $3,000 a month for living expenses.
Funai offers scholarships within its funding priorities, which focus on science and engineering, life sciences, and economics.
The program was launched ten years ago with scholarships awarded to two students, but today the foundation supports about ten successful
applicants per year. We start accepting applications in June, and the deadline is the end of September. After reviewing the application documents,
the Selection Committee conducts interviews around November 10, and the successful candidates are chosen by mid November.
Ph. D. program applications have to be submitted to overseas universities in December, so we try to give the students plenty of time to
get their applications in.
Click on Recipients to see a complete roster of all successful applicants from 2009 to 2019, together with the overseas universities
where they pursued their higher degrees.