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Rotary Peace Fellowship (Master's Degree Programme)

The Rotary Peace Fellowship is one of the few genuinely fully funded Master's scholarships in the world that a Sri Lankan can win without any government involvement at all. The Rotary Foundation pays tuition and fees, room and board, round-trip transportation, and the cost of the applied field experience, for a fifteen to twenty-four month Master's at one of the Rotary Peace Centers. For the Master's route, the host universities are Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the United States, the University of Bradford in England — whose Department of Peace Studies and International Development is the largest peace studies centre in the world — the University of Queensland in Australia, and International Christian University in Tokyo. Roughly forty Master's fellowships are awarded globally each year, so it is competitive, but it is competitive in a very specific way: Rotary is not looking for the highest GPA. It is looking for people already doing peacebuilding, conflict resolution, reconciliation, humanitarian or development work who need the qualification to go further. That profile is common in Sri Lanka — people working on post-conflict reconciliation in the North and East, on land and missing-persons issues, in humanitarian NGOs, in journalism, in local government, or in the security services. Note the two structural filters that catch most applicants out: you need at least three years of relevant full-time work experience, and at least three years must have passed since you finished your last degree. A recent graduate cannot apply, however impressive. You also need a Rotary club or district to endorse your application, which means making contact with a Sri Lankan Rotary club months before the deadline rather than in the final week.

The 2027-28 round has closed. Rotary normally opens the application in February and closes it in mid-May, more than a year before the fellowship begins — the 2028-29 application is expected to open in February 2027

The Rotary Foundation — Rotary Peace Centers

External Organization-funded

emoji_events Award Overview

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Value

Fully funded — tuition, fees, room and board, flights, field study

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Duration

15–24 months, including a 2–3 month applied field experience

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Awards

About 40 Master's fellowships worldwide each year

info How this award actually works

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This is a separate, highly competitive application

Awards from external organisations like this one run their own selection round against applicants from across the world, and success rates are usually in the low single digits. Lanka Scholar does not administer it and cannot submit it for you. Treat it as a bonus on top of a funded study plan — never as the plan itself.

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Who awards it

The Rotary Foundation — Rotary Peace Centers — not Lanka Scholar. We are not the awarding body and cannot grant, reserve or guarantee this award.

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How you are considered

Through a separate application round run by the funder, with its own forms, deadlines and shortlisting. You submit it yourself — it is not part of a university admission application.

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What it covers

Fully Funded Master's — Tuition, Fees, Room and Board, Flights and Field Study. Read the terms carefully: even fully-funded awards rarely cover every cost, and any shortfall is yours to fund.

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Where we come in

We help you judge whether this award is worth your time, and build a realistic admission plan that works whether or not you win it.

fact_check Eligibility Criteria

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Three Years of Relevant Work Experience

You need at least three years of full-time paid work in a field related to peace and development — conflict resolution, reconciliation, human rights, humanitarian relief, development, public health, law, journalism, education or the security sector all count. Volunteer-only records are usually not enough.

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A Three-Year Gap Since Your Last Degree

At least three years must separate the completion of your most recent degree and the start of the fellowship. Anyone currently enrolled, or who will be enrolled in the coming academic year, is ineligible. This rule alone removes most young applicants.

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Rotary Club or District Endorsement

Applications must be endorsed by a Rotary club or district. Sri Lanka has active Rotary districts and clubs in Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Jaffna and elsewhere. Approach a club early — endorsement usually involves meeting members and sometimes a local interview, and clubs will not endorse a stranger the week before the deadline.

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Open to Sri Lankan Citizens

There is no nationality restriction and no requirement for government nomination. Rotary does exclude active Rotary members, and employees of Rotary International or a Rotary club, from applying — a small but real disqualifier.

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Proficiency in English

All Master's Peace Centers teach in English, so you must meet the host university's normal English requirement alongside Rotary's own. Sri Lankan applicants with an English-medium degree can often use it in place of IELTS, but confirm with the specific university, not with Rotary.

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A Demonstrated Commitment to Peace

The application is judged on your record and your plan, not your grades. Selection panels look for evidence you have already worked on peace or development problems and a specific account of what you will do afterwards. Be concrete about the Sri Lankan context you intend to work in.

account_tree Application Process

Find and approach a Sri Lankan Rotary club early

Start six to nine months before the deadline. Identify a club, attend a meeting, explain your work, and ask about the endorsement process for the Peace Fellowship. This is the step Sri Lankan applicants most often leave too late.

Choose your Peace Center

Duke/UNC suits international development policy; Bradford suits peace studies, conflict resolution and development; Queensland suits peace and conflict studies within political science; ICU Tokyo suits an interdisciplinary liberal arts approach. You may rank preferences, but write to the strengths of your first choice.

Complete the online application by mid-May

The application opens on Rotary's site in February and closes around 15 May, well over a year before study begins. It covers your work history, essays on your peace-related experience and your plans, and references.

Club and district review

Your endorsing club and district review the application before it goes forward to The Rotary Foundation. Build in time for their internal deadlines, which come before Rotary's.

Global selection and university admission

The Rotary Foundation selects fellows globally, then successful candidates complete the host university's own admission process. A Rotary fellowship does not bypass admission requirements — you still need to be admitted.

Visa and departure

Sri Lankan fellows apply for the relevant student visa — UK Student visa for Bradford, US F-1 for Duke/UNC, Australian subclass 500 for Queensland, Japanese student visa for ICU. The Rotary award letter serves as your evidence of funds, which is the hardest part of those applications for most Sri Lankans.

Why the Rotary Peace Fellowship?

Rotary has run the Peace Centers since 2002 and the alumni network now works across the UN system, national governments, humanitarian agencies and civil society. For Sri Lanka the fit is unusually direct: the country has a generation of professionals whose careers were shaped by conflict, displacement and post-war reconciliation, and this is a scholarship designed for exactly that biography rather than for a straight-A twenty-two-year-old. The funding structure matters too. Because Rotary pays room and board as well as tuition and flights, a fellow does not need family money or a bank loan to accept the place — the single most common reason Sri Lankan candidates decline partially funded overseas offers.

~40

Master's fellowships awarded worldwide each year

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Master's Peace Centers (USA, UK, Australia, Japan)

3 years

Minimum work experience required

Looking for a scholarship because of the cost?

Then start here instead. Scholarships are competitive, usually partial, and decided by someone else — they are the least reliable way to make studying abroad affordable. Your destination and course choice move the number far more, and both are entirely within your control.

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