Westlake PhD Fellowship 2027 — Fully Funded Study in China

Westlake University is a young institution by Chinese standards, founded in 2018 in Hangzhou, and it has spent those years doing something unusual: building a research university where every admitted PhD student arrives funded. There is no separate fellowship form to compete for. If you are admitted to a Westlake doctoral programme as an international student, you receive a full tuition waiver and a monthly stipend for the duration of the PhD, backed by laboratories run by people who came from places like Stanford, MIT and Tsinghua.

What the award actually covers

Admission is the award. Every international PhD student who gets in receives a full tuition waiver plus a monthly living stipend and medical insurance through the university's fellowship system, which is administered at institutional level rather than per applicant. Because the funding sits with the university, the real competition is the admission itself: Westlake accepts a small cohort per programme and judges applications on research potential, English proficiency and a personal statement of more than 1,500 words that reads more like a research proposal than a life story.

Who can apply

You must be a non-Chinese citizen with a valid passport, in good health, holding a bachelor's degree in a related subject, with evidence of English proficiency. Eight of the PhD programmes accept either a bachelor's or a master's degree; the joint mathematics doctorate requires a master's. The programmes span physics, chemistry, quantitative biology and complex systems, multiscale astrophysics, materials science and engineering, electronic science and technology, artificial intelligence, sustainability science and technology, biology and biomedical sciences.

A quick self-check before you pick a round:

- Is your passport valid well past the intake year? - Can you write 1,500+ words of specific research intent, not general ambition? - Does your degree background actually match the programme's prerequisites?

The deadline

Westlake runs two admission rounds per programme, and the dates differ by department, so this is the part to read carefully. For the fall 2027 intake, first-round deadlines include Physics on 16 November 2026, Biology on 23 November 2026, Biomedical Sciences on 30 November 2026, and Chemistry and Quantitative Biology on 25 December 2026. Second rounds open in January 2027 and mostly close in late March 2027, though engineering programmes close as early as 22 February. All deadlines are 10 am Beijing time, and you may submit only one programme per round.

How to apply

Apply online through Westlake's admission portal with a copy of your passport bio page, the 1,500-word personal statement, degree certificates or proof of expected graduation, transcripts and evidence of English proficiency such as IELTS 6.5 or TOEFL 90. Strong applicants also prepare two recommendation contacts in advance, since faculty referees get requested through the system. Because admission is the scholarship, treat the application as a research-pitch: name the Westlake labs and research directions you would join, and explain what you would build there.

The official application requirements and per-programme timeline are published here:

https://en.westlake.edu.cn/admissions/graduate/

Materials checklist

- Passport bio-page copy, valid beyond the intake year - Personal statement of more than 1,500 words in English - Degree certificates or proof of impending graduation - Full academic transcripts - English proficiency proof (IELTS 6.5 / TOEFL 90 or accepted equivalent) - Recommendation contacts, requested through the portal

Common mistakes to avoid

The most common miss is treating the personal statement like a motivation letter: Westlake expects the expected research content spelled out, and generic statements sink fast. The second is deadline confusion, because applicants assume a single national deadline when each school publishes its own dates and second rounds close at different months. The third is applying to two programmes in one round, which the rules disallow, and losing the chance entirely.

Tips to win

Pick the round strategically: first rounds have more seats and less crowding, but second rounds let you add the autumn semester's improved results. Read the faculty pages of your target programme and reference two or three specific research groups in your statement; the admissions committee is largely the faculty themselves. If your English scores are borderline, book a test now rather than after a first-round rejection. And since tuition is waived for everyone admitted, do not spend effort hunting extra funding forms; put that energy into the statement and the transcripts instead, because that is where every point of the decision is earned.

Think about programme choice the way the admissions committee does. Westlake's schools are small and deliberately research-driven, so the fit between your transcript and the programme's core discipline matters more than prestige arithmetic: a chemistry applicant with strong quantitative coursework will read better than a generic top student with no laboratory evidence. If you are torn between two programmes, pick the one where your statement can be genuinely specific, because "one programme per round" means you cannot hedge.

Also plan the logistics of the 10 am Beijing deadline before you decide to aim for it. For applicants in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Europe, that time falls in the morning, but for applicants in the Americas it lands late at night, and passport uploads or transcript scans that fail at the last minute cannot be fixed after the round closes. Prepare the full document set a week early, run one complete dry submission if the portal allows saving, and keep the second-round dates of your programme on your calendar as the fallback, because knowing the exact January reopening date turns a first-round miss into a schedule adjustment rather than a lost year.

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An OEAC advisor can read your 1,500-word statement against the programme's research profile before you submit; send it over any time.

Last updated: 13 November 2026

Source: https://en.westlake.edu.cn/admissions/graduate/