Awardees will undergo a review about 3‐6 months prior to completion of their OPS/OPF/ECA programme for the School to assess their suitability for a tenure track Assistant Professor appointment. The review will involve the submission of a report by awardees, a presentation of one of their scholarly papers to the faculty, an interview with the Dean and other SMU academic leaders and if deemed required, external reviewers’ letters.

The funding covers the cost of programme fees, monthly stipend, overseas maintenance allowance, return economy airfares, medical insurance and conference/field work grants. The START scheme is co‐sponsored by the Ministry of Education and the autonomous universities (AUs) in Singapore. Hence, the amount of funding that a scholar will receive is similar to that offered by other Singaporean universities for the START scheme.

The full package is competitive and comparable to those offered by other public agencies for overseas postgraduate programmes.

In addition to the funding, SMU scholars are assigned a faculty mentor who will be your contact person at SMU to support you in your preparation to be an academic professional. There will be annual reviews providing scholars with an opportunity to reflect on your progress, to identify and improve upon your areas of development and to seek guidance from your mentors.

SMU would need to verify that you have either completed and obtained a relevant PhD or are expected to complete your PhD in the next year and are of “All But Dissertation” (“ABD”) status at the time of applying for the ECA. The academic institution that awarded the certification will be able to provide you with a certified true or a certified original academic transcript which you could submit to us.  To obtain certified true copies of an academic transcript, you would usually need to apply through the respective institution’s administrative offices, e.g. either through the School or Student Administration / Registrar’s Office.

Besides your Grade Point Average (GPA), the classification of the Masters and/or Bachelor degree will be considered in the light of the overall application. In general, a research Masters would likely allow admission to a good PhD programme than a Masters by coursework might. There are several pathways that can be considered in order to attain a good quality PhD programme. It may be helpful for you to research and find out the preferred pathways to a PhD programme which is well respected in the field you are interested in.

It is not a prerequisite that you should have admission in a PhD programme before applying for the OPS. However, it will be an advantage if applicants have confirmed admission in a PhD programme at a top university at the time of applying for the scholarship.

In general, the ECA applicants thus far have been either just completed their PhD in the current year of applying for the ECA, or might have 1-2 years of experience post PhD. SMU will consider applications based on individual merit.

It is not necessary for applicants to have graduated with their PhD at the time of submitting their applications. However, if awarded, it would be a condition of commencing the award that the recipient satisfies SMU that he/she has successfully completed all necessary requirements to be awarded the PhD.  SMU would outline in the offer of the award a date by when SMU would expect this condition to be met by the recipient, beyond which the offer of the award would lapse.

Applicants for the OPF are highly encouraged to have identified a post­doctoral assignment at the time of applying for OPF. At the very least, applicants must have a good idea of the post-doctoral assignment they would like to undertake during their fellowship and may work on their proposal with the SMU school faculty assigned to them.