Becas para El Cambio

Scholarships for Change — Call 975 (Becas para El Cambio)

Supports Colombian professionals through master's and doctoral scholarships tied to national mission areas.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

Convocatoria 975, branded Becas para El Cambio, is the flagship scholarship call of MinCiencias (Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación de Colombia) for the 2026 cycle. It allocates a total budget of COP $279,588,000,000 — approximately USD $67 million — for master's and doctoral scholarships across three modalities: national master's programs, national doctorates, and international doctorates at universities ranked in the Shanghai Top 500 (2025 edition) or QS Top 200 in arts and design. The original deadline of 20 April 2026 was extended to 28 April 2026 at 16:00 after platform demand overload; approximately 20,000 applicants registered interest. Per-award stipend amounts were not disclosed in the publicly available terms document.

Eligibility is restricted to individual Colombian university professionals — no organizations, companies, or institutions may apply. Applicants targeting national programs must ensure their institution holds valid MinEducación accreditation for the 2026-2 cohort start. International doctorate applicants must verify their target university appears on the applicable ranking list before submitting. All research proposals must explicitly state alignment with one of five national Misiones de Investigación e Innovación: bioeconomía y territorio, derecho a la alimentación, transición energética, soberanía en salud, or ciencia para la paz. Proposals without a clear mission alignment are outside scope.

The call also ran a concurrent regional variant, Convocatoria 974 for the Región Pacífico, at the same time. Multiple tutela (constitutional protection) court proceedings were filed against the implementation of Convocatoria 975, creating legal risk of procedural delays or modifications in this or future cycles. The Becas para El Cambio umbrella replaces and consolidates several legacy MinCiencias scholarship lines, including Doctorados Nacionales, Doctorados en el Exterior, and Generación del Bicentenario programs, under the Petro government's rebranding.