For scholarships, applicants will undergo at least 2 rounds of interviews involving the top management of the Biomedical Research Council or Science & Engineering Research Council, and researchers from local research institutes and centres, universities or hospitals. If the applicant is successful in these interviews, he will be awarded the scholarship on an 'in-principle' basis, which will become effective when the candidate clears his psychometric and medical health tests.

For fellowship, applicants have to submit at least 2 referee reports and a description of his proposed research area plus all his academic credentials. An expert panel for assessment will then review them.

In addition to academic excellence and a passion in science, we are looking for people committed to the cause of serving Singapore. A*STAR is making a huge investment on the scholar and the aim is for the scholar to come back and drive the Singapore's R&D sector. He/she will have a big role to help Singapore stay competitive as a global knowledge-based economy and be the future catalyst of creating high value-adding jobs for Singapore.

You should have secured a place in one overseas universities, or at least be in the process of applying to one or more of them. You may wish to refer to the list of universities where our scholars are attending / had attended in the past. For NSS (BS) applicants, please refer to the lists here (biomedical sciences) and here (science and engineering); and for NSS (PhD) applicants, please refer to the lists here (biomedical sciences) and here (science and engineering).

Scholars are allowed to take up part-time jobs as long as their studies are not affected and the part-time jobs are academically related. However, they will have to seek prior approval from A*STAR.

A one-time Miscellaneous Allowance, given at the start of the course to all our successful candidates, will be sufficient to cover the costs of these tests.