Go Abroad Fund eligibility criteria

The Go Abroad Fund provides financial support for students to undertake a short-term international experience abroad over the summer.

In order to be eligible for the funding, your proposed international activity must:

  • Take place outside of the UK, which includes crown dependencies (Jersey, Guernsey, and Isle of Man)
  • Proposed destination and activity must be deemed safe. Find out about country-specific safety information:

 

  • Take place entirely between (or including) 27 May and 31 August 2025 (if your activity falls outside of these dates, you are not eligible for funding)
  • Be a minimum duration of 7 days (which can include travel days)
  • Be educational either academically, professionally, or personally. It does not have to be related to your degree programme.
  • NOT be a mandatory element of your degree programme
  • NOT be credit-bearing
  • NOT take place in your registered country of domicile

Your activity must have an educational component. We are unable to fund activities which are a mandatory part of a student's degree programme or are credit-bearing. Activities which take place in a student's registered country of domicile will also not be eligible. 


In order to be eligible for the funding, you must:

  • be registered at the University of Edinburgh and enrolled in studies leading to a recognised degree or another tertiary level qualification (up to and including the level of doctorate), or graduating with a University of Edinburgh degree in summer 2025
  • not have been a recipient of the Go Abroad Fund in 2020 - 2024
  • you do not need to be a UK national to be eligible, however, you must have a UK bank account in order to be eligible, as this is where we will transfer the funding
  • Widening Participation students will have priority access to available funding and where successful, will generally receive larger amounts of funding. We work directly with the Widening Participation and the Scholarships teams to determine who is eligible for Widening Participation funding.

Candidates will need to submit an application. The application will include your personal details and your proposed activity details. It will also include a personal statement. 

Within their personal statement, successful candidates will need to:

  • Present a well-researched and coherent proposal for the international activity, explaining what they will be doing on their activity and why this is important to them
  • Demonstrate strong motivation for undertaking an international experience
  • Show the extent to which they will benefit (academically and personally) from both the funding and the international experience

If you are selected, and successfully complete a risk assessment, you will receive one lump sum to be used towards your travel and subsistence expenses. 

Rates:

Widening Participation StudentsNon-Widening Participation Students
Flat rate of £1000Flat rate of £500

Go Abroad Fund Application 2025

 

University's Widening Participation

The applications team will work directly with the Widening Participation and Scholarships teams to determine who is eligible for Widening Participation (WP) additional funding. 

The Widening Participation team will email all students deemed eligible for the WP rate directly by mid-January 2025, encouraging them to apply for the Go Abroad Fund and telling them that if successful, they are eligible for the WP rate.

If your application is successful but you have not received an email from the Widening Participation team, you will receive the “Non-Widening Participation” rate in the table above. 

Please note that the University's Widening Participation criteria only applies to undergraduate students.

Widening Participation status is generally only applied to students meeting the WP eligibility criteria who had established UK residency at the time they commenced their Undergraduate studies. Successful Postgraduate, PhD, and international student applicants will receive the non-WP rate.  

Edinburgh's Development Trust

We gratefully acknowledge that the University of Edinburgh Development Trust provides part of the funding for the Go Abroad Fund. Without this ongoing support, we would not be able to fund these projects, which do so much to improve the quality of the student learning experience at the University of Edinburgh.

We want to thank all alumni, staff and other donors who support the Development Trust, including through its unrestricted Edinburgh Fund.  

 

Go Abroad Fund

Contact details: goabroadprojects@ed.ac.uk

If you want to know more about the Go Abroad Fund, please visit our frequently asked questions page:

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