Merit Scholarships

The Merit Scholarships are awarded annually to the national or equivalent status students registered for cycles of studies of Bachelor’s, Integrated Master’s or Master's degree courses who had an exceptional successful academic performance.

The requisites for students to be considered eligible for the award of merit scholarships are the following:

• Having completed all the curricular units of the study programme of the curricular year in the academic year to which the scholarship refers (a minimum number of 60 ECTS credits), provided that those credits do not concern reregistration curricular units;
• Having obtained an average mark concerning the curricular units referred to in subparagraph a) not inferior to Very Good (16 points).

	Students are sorted by the sequential application of the following criteria:
	a) Best weighted average of the grades obtained in the curricular units in the academic year to which the scholarship refers;  b) Best weighted average of the grades obtained in all the curricular units concerning the academic year to which the scholarship refers and the previous academic years included in the study programme of the cycle of studies for which the student is registered; c) Highest number of ECTS credits already obtained; d) Average application grade to the University of Coimbra.
	The scholarships are distributed amongst the Faculties according to the number of students, and up to a maximum of two scholarships per Faculty, except for the College of Arts that has a maximum of one scholarship.  If there are scholarships not awarded by one or more Faculties, then they will be assigned to the other Faculties.
	The scholarship is an amount paid annually that is equal to five times the national monthly minimum wage in force at the beginning of the academic year in which it is awarded and is paid in a single lump sum. The payment of the scholarships by the University of Coimbra depends on the transfer of the corresponding amount by the Directorate General for Higher Education.
	The students who are awarded this scholarship will have it mentioned in their Diploma Supplement and a supporting document may be issued.
	This document is not issued immediately, thus it cannot be given to the student at the moment of the request at the Academic Assistance Centre. The student may request that document by means of the Online E-mail Form | Académicos UC and must wait for the answer of the Academic Management Services that includes the ATM reference number in order to pay the fee and confirmation of its sending. The fee refers to the item “Another certificate concerning the data of the Student’s Academic Record” which is contained in the Table of Fees and Other Charges” in force at the UC.

Note: The awarding of the scholarship will be carried out in accordance with the calendar established by a dispatch of the General Director of Higher Education.

Publication of Lists

The procedure concerning each academic year begins after the guidelines are given by the Directorate General for Higher Education (DGES), which ensures the payment of these scholarships.