25 for 25

  • September 3, 2024
25 for 25

Gates Cambridge will mark its 25th anniversary with an additional 25 scholarships in 2025

Our aim is to create a limitless ripple effect of possibility and change.

Eilis Ferran

The Gates Cambridge Trust will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2025 by offering an additional 25 postgraduate scholarships for our Class of 2025.

The 25th anniversary celebrations start next year and will kick off with our Impact Prize ceremony in January which will highlight the far-reaching impact of existiung Gates Cambridge Scholars and look forward to the next 25 years.

The Scholarship was set up in 2000 for international postgraduate students following a $210 billion donation by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the first cohort of Scholars started in 2001. Since then, over 2,000 Scholarships have been awarded.

Applications for entry in the academic year 2025-26 open tomorrow [4th September]. Gates Cambridge manages two selection rounds each year, with the first deadline for US-based Scholars being on 16th October and the second starting from 3rd December.

Scholars apply to the University of Cambridge in the usual way and are put forward by their department for the Scholarship programme if they have expressed an interest in it. Scholars need to demonstrate academic excellence, a commitment to improving the lives of others and a capacity for leadership.

Eilis Ferran, Provost of Gates Cambridge, said: “For 25 years now, students from across the globe have come to Cambridge to work with us and become part of our community. Then, when they go back out into the world as Gates Cambridge scholars, they make it a better place in ways no one could have predicted at the start. Our aim is to create a limitless ripple effect of possibility and change.”

Latest News

Impact Prize Profile: Emily Kassie

Emily Kassie [2016] is an Emmy and Peabody-nominated investigative journalist and filmmaker. Kassie shoots, directs and reports stories on geopolitical conflict, humanitarian crises, corruption and the people caught in the crossfire.  Her work for The New York Times, PBS “Frontline”, Netflix, and others ranges from drug and weapons trafficking in the Saharan desert to immigrant detention […]

Impact Prize Profile: Alexandra Grigore

Alexandra Grigore [2012] is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Simprints, the world’s first open-source biometric ID platform with privacy at its core. The company has now reached over three million people across 17 countries and anticipates that impact will increase tenfold in the next years. In the 10 years since it started, Alexandra has […]

Impact Prize ceremony celebrates purpose and positivity

Eight outstanding Gates Cambridge Scholars from a diverse range of backgrounds and disciplines accepted prizes on Friday night for the transformative effect their work is having in disciplines and sectors ranging from plant science and conservation to healthcare and human rights. The Impact Prize ceremony, held at Bill Gates Sr. House, was introduced by Professor […]

Impact Prize winners announced

What unites a wildlife cameraman, a quantum physicist and the co-founder of a solar energy business? For Gates Cambridge Scholars at the University of Cambridge it is the desire to improve the lives of others.  The scholars, all international postgraduate students, come from all walks of life and all disciplines, but they are keen to […]