The Free Press Journal spoke to Federica Maria Giove, Director of the Uni-Italia Centre in India. Uni-Italia's mission is to promote the Italian Higher Education System in the county.
What are the scholarship programs Indian Students can look for when they study in Italy?
Italy offers a very interesting scholarship opportunity called, ‘Invest your talent in Italy’. This program is also offered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, but also the Italian Trade Agency and Uni-Italia. It is addressed only to students coming from selected 17 countries, and India is one of these. Indian students who are willing to study a Master's degree program in Italy can apply. It is only applicable to specific areas of study such as engineering, architecture, design, economics and management.
The master degrees included in the program are all entirely taught in English.
The scholarship is merit based and offers tuition fee waiver of 900 Euros (80,000INR) every month and an Italian language course for free.
On top of this, students will have the opportunity to undergo, during their studies, a three-month-long internship at a leading Italian company, which is the core of the program. The scope of this scholarship program is not only to help students study in Italy but to also help them find a job in Italy, or to expand their employment opportunities at the very least.
Do Italian Universities also offer scholarship programs alongside the government?
Students can also look at a scholarship offered directly by every Italian University. We recommend the students check the official Italian website for available scholarship opportunities. Many universities also have a flat fee for students coming from particular countries. For Example, Certain universities offer a flat fee of around 500 Euros for students coming from India.
Students can avail the scholarships issued by Italian regions too. Italy is divided into regions, and according to the region in which the university is located, the students may apply for the concerned regional scholarship. These happen to be income-based scholarships. Based on their family income, the student may receive a fee waiver or a tuition fee reduction. This may be accompanied by discounts on meals and free accommodation too.
All of these initiates might give students a clear idea of all the efforts undertaken by the Italian Government to increase the number of Italian students in our University.
How can Indian students make sure that all the information they are receiving about Italian Scholarships is authentic?
In order to stay informed about the process, students must try to gather all the necessary information on their own from the official websites. They will always have to refer to the University's website to have a better understanding of what the study program is being offered.
For visa application related issues, the most important step is to only refer to the official visa checklist published by the Italian diplomatic missions in India on their respective websites:
Embassy of Italy in New Delhi or Consulte General of Italy in Mumbai or Consualte General of Italy in Kolkata, depending on where the students have their residency.
If they need any sort of assistance with the different programs available, the admission process and the visa application procedure they should refer to Uni-Italian’s center in India.
Uni-Italia is the Italian National Agency dedicated to the promotion of studying in Italy around the word .
It was founded by the Italian government in 2010 and have been located in India since 2017. Since then we are providing assistance to all the students across India who are eager to go to Italy to pursue their higher education.
