The Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan has received an overwhelming 26,000 applications for the Stipendium Hungaricum Programme for the 2026 academic year, even as it announced that 1,427 scholarships have been awarded under the initiative since its inception in 2016.
According to a report today, the selection process for the current year”s scholarships is presently underway and is anticipated to conclude by June 2026. Students have previously availed themselves of these opportunities across various disciplines at Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD levels.
The Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship Programme is a fully-funded scheme offering opportunities for Bachelor”s, Master”s, One-Tier Master”s, and PhD studies across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines. These include engineering, information technology, agriculture, medicine, business, and social sciences.
Recipients benefit from comprehensive funding, encompassing tuition fees, a monthly stipend, accommodation support, and medical insurance. The programme”s core objectives involve fostering robust academic and research collaboration between Pakistan and Hungary, alongside providing Pakistani students with access to high-quality European education and promoting cross-cultural exchange within a diverse academic setting.
The programme”s foundation was laid with an initial Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in December 2015, which initially facilitated 80 scholarships annually over three years. The inaugural cohort, comprising 64 students, commenced their studies in Hungary in September 2016.
Subsequent revisions to the MoU significantly expanded the opportunities; a 2017 amendment raised the annual scholarship allocation to 200, followed by a renewal in 2020 extending the partnership until December 2022. A further agreement then dramatically increased the provision to 400 scholarships per year across various educational levels for the 2023-2025 period.
Most recently, the agreement has been prolonged, ensuring the continued availability of up to 400 annual scholarships for the 2026 to 2028 duration, thus sustaining valuable higher education prospects in Hungary for Pakistani scholars.