Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Deadline: October 7, 2025
The Chevening-Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) Fellowship 2026/2027 is now open for applications. This prestigious program, a collaboration between Chevening Scholarships (UK Government) and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), is designed for mid-career professionals, scholars, and academics who are dedicated to promoting understanding of Islamic culture and civilization.
The fellowship offers a unique opportunity for emerging leaders to pursue advanced research in the UK, focusing on topics relevant to the Islamic world and fostering dialogue between civilizations. Fellows will spend up to six months at OCIS, University of Oxford, engaging in independent research, academic networking, and policy dialogues.
Programme structure
Fellows will undertake a five-month period of self-directed research at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), focusing on their own project on the culture and civilisation of Islam and contemporary Muslim societies in a global context.
Fellows will benefit from meeting a multi-disciplinary group of scholars focusing on the Islamic world and have the opportunity to develop contacts with relevant individuals, discuss issues relating to the Islamic world, including Islamic history, classical Islamic sciences, economics and Islamic finance, public health, science and technology in the Muslim world, and the study of Muslims in the West. Fellows will contribute to the Centre’s objective to encourage and promote sustained dialogue and collaboration within the global academic community of the culture and civilisation of Islam and contemporary Muslim societies.
SEE ALSO: Chevening Clore Leadership Fellowship 2026/2027 for Mid-Career Professionals (Fully Funded to the UK)
Benefits
- Five-month period of research at OCIS.
- Living expenses for the duration of the fellowship.
- Return economy airfare from home country to the UK.
- Allowance package for research-related activities.
- Access to a programme of cultural events and activities organised by the FCDO and the Chevening Secretariat.
Eligibility
The Chevening OCIS Abdullah Gül Fellowship is available to applicants from Turkey.
To be eligible for a Chevening OCIS Fellowship, you must:
- Demonstrate the potential to rise to a position of leadership and influence.
- Demonstrate the personal, intellectual and interpersonal attributes reflecting this potential.
- Be a citizen of one of the following countries and resident in one of these countries at the point of application: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Philippines, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan.
- Return to country of your citizenship at the end of the period of the fellowship.
- Hold a postgraduate level qualification (or equivalent professional training or experience in a relevant area) at the time of application.
- Have significant professional and/or academic research experience (at least five years).
- Have a good working knowledge of English to be assessed in your application form and if you are invited to interview.
- Not hold British or dual-British citizenship.
- Not be an employee, a former employee, or relative* of an employee of His Majesty’s Government, or have been within the last two years from the opening of Chevening applications (including the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, all British Embassies/High Commissions, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for International Trade and the UKVI), the British Council, or a sponsoring UK university.
* Note: Immediate relatives are defined as parents or step-parents, siblings or step-siblings, children or step-children, spouse, civil partner or unmarried (where the couple have been in a relationship akin to marriage or civil partnership for at least two years).
