Promotion of Professionally Gifted During a University Degree (Ascension Scholarship)

The Upgrading Scholarship supports committed professionals with vocational training and practical experience in their first academic university studies. The funding is a program of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The SBB is responsible for selecting the scholarship holders and accompanying them during their studies on behalf of and with funds from the BMBF.
The Upgrading Scholarship is specifically aimed at professionals with experience and therefore has some special features:

• Funding is available for both full-time and part-time university studies.
• Professionals who have been working for a long time can also apply for an Upgrading Scholarship to open up new perspectives for their professional development through a study.
• The application is possible before the start of the studies. After admission to the scholarship, there is one year to start the studies - after enrollment the funding starts. Those who are already studying can apply in the first or second semester.

A first academic degree at a state or state-recognized university in Germany, a member state of the European Union or Switzerland is supported. The degree is usually a Bachelor's or State Examination. In Germany there are several thousand eligible Bachelor's degree programs at over 400 universities.
Not all educational offerings that are referred to as 'studies' can be supported by an advancement scholarship. In the following cases, please contact the Upward Scholarship team for clarification:

• a study in cooperation between a university and other educational institutions
• a study in a country of the European Union or Switzerland
• a 'trial study' (or similar designation) before entering the actual study
• a study in which the term 'further education' is mentioned The first application for an Upward Scholarship to support a Master's degree is only possible if it is a first degree (e.g. after recognition of professional qualifications). Only scholarship holders who were already in the Upward Scholarship for the first degree up to the Bachelor's degree can apply for further funding in a consecutive Master's degree after a particularly good degree.

For the promotion scholarship, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has issued guidelines regulating the services and requirements for funding:
https://www.bmbf.de/bmbf/shareddocs/bekanntmachungen/de/2022/08/2022-08-31-Bekanntmachung-berufliche-Begabung.html