Gates Cambridge Scholarship
Scholarship program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The Gates Cambridge Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Cambridge. The scholarship is extremely competitive with around 0.5% of applicants receiving an award in recent years.
Eligibility and selection criteria
Applicants from any country other than the United Kingdom are eligible to apply for the Gates Cambridge Scholarships. Candidates must apply to pursue one of the following full-time residential degrees at the University of Cambridge:
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Master of Science (MSc), Master of Letters (MLitt), Master of Philosophy (MPhil)
Other one-year postgraduate course (e.g. LLM, MRes, MASt)
Applicants concurrently apply to a course, college and department and the offer of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship is conditional on the student gaining full placement in each.
The Gates Cambridge Trustees use four criteria to choose Scholars:
Academic excellence: Competitiveness is evaluated through academic transcripts, references, experience and the potential to succeed on the chosen course. A departmental nomination is crucial for demonstrating this criterion;
Choice of course: The Trust seeks Scholars who will have an academically transformative experience at Cambridge. Candidates must demonstrate intellectual superiority and the necessary skills and expertise to complete the course which they have chosen;
A commitment to improving the lives of others: A defining characteristic of Scholars is their deep devotion to improving lives of others as evident by their past, current and future commitment to the societies in which they will live and work;
A capacity for leadership: Candidates must show exceptional leadership elements and a pledge to 'take others with them' as future leaders of their fields and communities.
Generally, each class of Gates Cambridge Scholars is composed of 2⁄3 PhD and 1⁄3 one-year Scholars. The Gates Cambridge Trust uses a three-stage selection process to select its Scholars.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gates Cambridge Scholarship” as scholarship program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as scholarship program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q490063. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Gates Cambridge Scholarship”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Gates Cambridge Scholarship primary sources, Gates Cambridge Scholarship archive and Gates research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gates Cambridge Scholarship”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Gates Cambridge Scholarship” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.