Program Introduction

2. Selection Criteria

3. Decision Making Mechanisms

4. Selection Process

5. Communication of Selection Decisions

6. Stages of Application and Deadlines

 

1. Eligibility Criteria for Applicants
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Eligibility criteria of the REF/Scholarship Program set standards, according to which applicants’ qualifications are assessed. The Program Applications are screened against eligibility criteria. The applicants who do not meet the eligibility criteria of the Program are not further considered in the academic competition of the Program.

Note 1:  Part-time students are eligible to apply for RMUSP only if they are studying for a Master or Doctorate (in any Program country) or are studying in Czech Republic or Slovakia (for any degree).

Note 2: Freshmen-to-be applicants (i.e. first year students at any level) will be required to participate in a personal interview. (see below details on interviews).

REF can support under RMUSP Scholarship scheme the same applicant throughout his/her studies for:

– one Bachelor degree, for maximum 4/5 years (if integrated study model), with one transfer to another university /faculty /field of studies being allowed only once,

– one Master degree, for maximum two years,

– one Doctorate degree, for maximum three years.

Applicants who receive an academic scholarship from other organization(s) for the academic year 2012-2013, are not eligible for REF RMUSP. Employees of REF, the Open Society Foundations or national foundations of the Soros Foundations Network (SFN), as well as those individuals working on projects funded by the REF or who receive honoraria (consultants, fellowships) from REF or SFN, are not eligible for REF Scholarship. The applicants may apply to different REF scholarship schemes simultaneously if eligible according to eligibility criteria of each scheme. At the conclusion of the selection process, if accepted for more than one REF scholarship scheme, the concerned applicants will be required to choose only one.

Applicants should:

declare themselves as Roma;
declare as willing to appear publicly as Roma; 
have been (or will be) accepted at a state accredited university in their home country or country of residence in the upcoming academic year; persons planning to get enrolled in a university in the upcoming year, but not enrolled in one at the moment of application, are also eligible; please note that the home country and country of residence has to be one of the Program countries as follows: Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo*, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Turkey;
pursue studies for obtaining a Bachelor, Master, or Doctorate degree;
submit a complete Online Application Form (OAF) by the program’s set deadline;
submit a Statement of Purpose that expresses their academic goals and/or accomplishments and shows their commitment and motivation to study (as specified in OAF);
submit an Essay based on the topic(s) specified in the OAF;
provide an official transcript of the university grades from all completed academic years as well as the latest completed semester of September – December 2011. If the applicant has not been enrolled in school/university recently,  he or she should provide certified copies of the latest received grade transcripts and /or diplomas; 
submit at least one detailed and informative Reference Letter, describing the academic performance and/or extra-curricular (including Roma-related) activities of the applicant;
study in one of the following fields: law, public administration, journalism, political science, sociology, psychology, pedagogy, philosophy, economics, finance and banking, business administration, history, international relations and European studies, communications and public relations, medicine, engineering, ecology or environmental studies, biology, mathematics, physics and arts;
provide evidence of acceptance in university studies within a recognized university in the applicants’ own country or country of residence by presentation of an original university enrolment certificate for the academic year for which they are applying for scholarship support.

 

2. Selection Criteria 
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Selection criteria for REF scholarship schemes take into account the quality of the information and documents submitted. The applicants must strive to comply with the selection criteria and present competitive application materials. The selection criteria for all Program countries and schemes are as follows:

competitive Grade Point Average (GPA); in case of higher-than-anticipated demand for scholarship support in Program countries, the GPA criterion may become more demanding;
the content and structure of the statement of purpose;
the academic quality and structure of the essay;
participation in academic seminars, conferences, workshops, summer schools, and/or competitions, including Roma-related activities, constitute an advantage in the overall score; 
performance at the interview (for those applicants invited to the interview).

Further considerations

Major considerations of the selection process of the Scholarship Program include the following:

– The Program classifies the applicants in two groups for further selection: renewal applicants and new applicants.

Renewal applicants – Students who received a REF scholarship for the previous academic year and are applying to renew their scholarship.

New applicants – Students who did not receive a REF scholarship in the previous academic year, regardless of whether they received it in earlier years.

– The Program has established a quota per country based on a combination of factors. Among these are estimation of Roma population ratio per country, availability of affirmative measures in tertiary education, and accessibility of EU student/loan funds of the potential applicant pool.

The Program has established GPA as one of the criteria for selection. The minimum GPA that applicants should have in order to be selected for the scholarship depends on the competition of each year.

3. Decision Making Mechanisms
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REF/SP is responsible in the selection process for the eligibility check only, as made by Country Coordinators. Further, REF/SP responsibility is to ensure that the established mechanism and criteria are observed and utilized accordingly by the relevant bodies, as explained bellow. Those interested in further details regarding the roles of SP and Country Coordinators are kindly invited to read the Operational Manual.

Selection of scholars from the pool of applicants is carried out by a National Selection Board (NSB). The NSB members for the RMUSP are selected for their positions through an open competition and serve in the boards from 3 to 5 years. The Program strives to select representatives of academia and of Roma communities for the NSBs in all Program countries.

4. Selection Process
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The selection process consists of several steps and levels, with slight variations according to the specific Program. Key steps are explained below.

Step One: Verifying whether the requirements of the Eligibility criteria of the Program are met. The step consists of a technical verification of each application, which is done by the REF/SP staff.

Step Two: Evaluating the application content. The evaluation is carried out by the REF/SP NSB in respective program countries. The NSB members review the submitted applications by assigning scores to each application according to a pre-established set of criteria and consequently by ranking all the applications from a particular scheme and country. Based on the ranking system, applicants are either shortlisted (on accepted conditionally list or on the waiting list), or rejected.

Step Three: Conducting personal interviews with the applicants who are going to study in the first academic year of the level (Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate) in 2012-2013. The short-listed applicants will be invited to a compulsory interview with the NSB members in each program country (see below details on interviews). After the interviews the ranking of candidates and the classification of applicants into the “accepted conditionally list” and “waiting list” in a program country is updated.

Step Four: submission of enrolment certificates in universities for the 2012-2013 academic year: the short-listed applicants will be also required to submit by the set deadline an enrolment certificate proving that they are enrolled in the academic program specified in the application in the 2012-2013 academic year.

Step Five: finalization of the selection process: after the completion of the four steps mentioned above, the program reanalyzes the lists of short-listed candidates to determine the final lists of beneficiaries. The short-listed candidates who were ranked within the “accepted conditionally” list and who submitted an adequate enrollment certificate by the submission deadline become beneficiaries of the program. From the same category, those candidates who have not submitted an adequate enrolment certificate by the submission deadline are rejected and replaced with applicants from the waiting list.

IMPORTANT: The new applicants will be invited to participate in the Program’s Orientation Session. During the meeting applicants will receive detailed information regarding the roles and responsibilities of REF/SP and if scholarship beneficiaries. This session will take place in the Program countries between June and September, 2012. The venue and the dates of such sessions will be communicated to the applicants by e-mail.

Freshmen-to-be applicants to RMUSP (i.e. first year students at any level) will be required to participate in a personal interview. The notification for personal interviews, as well as the venue, will be forwarded to the concerned applicants via e-mail by the Program’s Country Coordinators. The interviews will be conducted by the NSB members. Invited applicants who will fail to attend the interviews will not be considered for the further selection process. The transportation costs to attend the interview site will be covered by REF.

5. Communication of Selection Decisions
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The Program communicates the outcomes of the selection process to the applicants via e-mail, on two occasions:

  • Firstly, after Step Three mentioned above (end of July /beginning of August) when applicants will receive either an official Rejection Letter with specified reasons for rejection, or a Notification Letter containing instructions on further steps to be undertaken by the candidate in order to stay in the competition;
  • Secondly, after Step Five mentioned above (October) when applicants will receive either an official Rejection Letter with specified reasons for rejection, or an Acceptance Letter.

The applicants may appeal against the National Selection Board’s decision within one month time from the moment of receiving the selection result from the Program. The appeals should be sent to REF/SP to the scholarships@romaeducationfund.org

Please use this email address only for appeals. For other enquiries please contact the Country Coordinator.

6. Stages of Application and Deadlines
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In order to be considered for scholarship in the academic year 2012-2013 you will have to comply with the two deadlines/stages described in detail below.

Stage One – Deadline: May 15th, 2012

Online Application Form (OAF) – must be completed exhaustively; applicants must provide all the requested information and documents.

The Reference Letter(s) – must be scanned and uploaded as attachments within the OAF, and must:

  • be written by an individual familiar with the applicant’s academic or/and Roma-related activities; such person can be the applicant’s university professor, an NGO leader or work supervisor;
  • bear the original signature and stamp (if available) of the reference person;

Grade transcripts – must be scanned and uploaded as attachments within the application form and:

  • be an official academic grade transcript from all completed academic years as well as the latest completed semester of September – December 2011 (in case applicants have not been enrolled in school/university lately please provide certified copies of the latest received grade transcripts and /or diplomas);
  • bear the original stamp of the university and signature of the university representative.

ID/passport – must be scanned and uploaded as attachments within OAF, and must:

  • be legible and, if an ID, have copies of both sides.

Contractual Obligations – is a part of the OAF that needs to be accepted by Applicants in order to be further considered for the academic competition:

  • the Contractual Obligations constitute a legally binding article serving as an agreement by the applicant to follow the REF/SP requirements and conditions if the applicant is selected for the scholarship;
  • the Contractual Obligations will be reviewed and agreed within OAF by each applicant;
  • signing the Contractual Obligations does NOT entitle or guarantee the selection of the applicant for a scholarship.
Stage Two – Deadline:
 
  • September 15th 2012 for Serbia;
  • October 15th 2012 for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo*, Macedonia, Montenegro Romania, Slovakia and Turkey.

Enrolment certificate – must be scanned and uploaded as attachment to the application form and must:

  • be an original enrolment certificate from the applicants’ university showing that he or she is enrolled for the academic year 2012-2013;
  • contain the applicant’s full name, his or her year of study, name of university, faculty, department, specialization and type of study (i.e. full time, part time, distance etc.);
  • NOT bear corrections unless stamped and signed by the issuing person.

Tuition fee certificate – must be scanned and uploaded as attachment to the application form and:

  • be an original tuition fee certificate indicating cost of tuition for the academic year 2012-2013 (if applicable); the tuition amount should be indicated on the enrolment certificate, an additional stamp needs to be placed next to the amount indicated.

The grant amount for RMUSP is 800 EUR/year; the scholarship can go up to 2,000 EUR considering the amount of tuition fees to be paid.

Applicants are strongly advised to read carefully the requirements and specific guidelines of the Program and contact the Country Coordinator in case they require clarifications.

 

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

 

Please note that according to the REF /SP Program Policies and Procedures, applicants found responsible for sending forged documents shall not be further considered for any REF funded Programs.