BMI held one of its three Global Scholarship Summits in London, at which its inaugural Global Scholarship Awards were also awarded.
The event was attended by at more than 200 representatives of global organisations and institutions, with at least 1,500 one-on-one meetings taking place over the two days.
“It’s just a fantastic way to connect, and find out what funding is available”
At least 70 scholarship organisations, including governments from around the world and NGOs like COLFUTURO and the Organization of American States.
Jack Brady, international cooperation program coordinator of the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (Chile), explained the work the organisation does, and why attending the Summit was important.
“We are a governmental organisation, the main scholarship organisation in Chile and we have a huge interest in this event. We are here to meet counterparts, universities, to find new institutions to cooperate with.”
He continued, most scholarships are for post-graduate studies and students must be accepted to an HEI, before
“Students must be accepted by a university, and after that they can apply for the CONICYT scholarships. We mainly [provide] for master’s or PhD studies.
And it wasn’t only the scholarship organisations that travelled across the world to attend.
The PIE News spoke with Roxanna Nuhaily, associate dean of International and Academic Affairs, UC San Diego, about wht convinced her to travel more than 5,000 miles to attend the event.
“It’s a great opportunity to find out exactly what [organisations] can fund, and know where the opportunities are to make our programs known to them – or what has to be done in order for them to qualify us,” Nuhaily said.
“It’s just a fantastic way to connect, and instead of talking directly to students, actually finding out what kinds of funding are available to students, and then when we do go to student events sometimes we’re the one that tell students about what they can take advantage of in their home countries,” she explained.
“We are always looking for diversity in our student recruitment, so coming here is also another way to accomplish that. I have met with people from countries I can’t travel to, because they don’t represent markets that are big enough, to be affordable in our budget.”
Along with two days of meetings, the attendees were treated to a Gala dinner at Hatfield House, the former residence of King Henry VIII.
At the evening event, four awards were handed out:
Lifetime Achievement Award – Jeronimo Castro Jaramillo, executive director of COLFUTURO
Best Scholarship Platform for Students – The Dubai Police
Best Scholarship Programme Benefiting Underprivileged Students – IIE
Best Management of Scholarship Students Abroad – Crowne Price’s International Scholarship Progam (Bahrain)
BMI’s CEO Samir Zaveri said the awards acknowledged “great contributions to the international education industry”.
“Making our final selection was certainly a challenge, and we extend a hearty congratulations to the winners and to all those who entered,” he added.
