Invest Your Talent in Italy, 11th edition, academic year 2026-2027
The country list, not the course list, decides
- What it pays€1,000about PKR 321,000
- Paid over9 monthsper academic year
- Closes11 May 202618:00 Italian time, closed on 11 May 2026
- LevelMaster's degree
- Country list23 countriesFull list below
- Alongside another awardNo
Invest Your Talent in Italy, current call, 11th edition, Art. 2checked
What this figure depends on
cash, per academic year, paid quarterly into an Italian bank account
€10,800 in total.
The quarters are not equal. October to December 2026 pays 4,800 euros, deliberately front loaded for settling in, then January to March and April to June pay 3,000 euros each, and each of those two is released only if you have sat at least one exam, then at least two.
€1 = PKR 321.43, 30 August 2026
The 23 countries on the eligibility list
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Bangladesh
- Brazil
- Chile
- Colombia
- Egypt
- Ethiopia
- Ghana
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Kazakhstan
- Mexico
- Mongolia
- Paraguay
- Peru
- People's Republic of China
- Tunisia
- Turkiye
- Uruguay
- Vietnam
When the next call is expected
Not discontinued. The 11th edition opened on 20 April 2026 and closed on 11 May 2026 at 18:00 Italian time, and the call already sets out renewal duties running to July 2027, so the programme is funded and operating. A 12th edition would be expected to open in spring 2027 on the same portal. Article 2 is rewritten each edition, so the country list has to be reread rather than carried over.
- Opens
- 20 April 2026
- State today
- closed on 11 May 2026
Worked out from today’s date when this page was served, never typed in as “open”.
What it covers
What the money buys, and who it is for.
The programme is alive, not discontinued: its 11th edition ran for 2026-2027 and pays 10,800 euros a year plus a waiver of enrolment fees and university contributions, for an English taught master's with a compulsory internship at an Italian company. Article 2 of the call reserves it to citizens of 23 named countries and Pakistan is not one of them.
Included
- A scholarship of 10,800 euros for nine months of study starting 1 October 2026
- Exemption from enrolment fees and university contributions at the participating institution
- A compulsory curricular internship at an Italian company or professional association
- Exemption from Italian income tax on the scholarship under the Consolidated Income Tax Law
What it does not cover
The fee waiver does not cover the regional tax for the right to education, stamp duty, the cost of any accident or civil liability insurance, or health insurance. Health cover is your own problem: the call states the recipient must independently arrange health insurance for illness and accidents in Italy. The scholarship does not cover travel and does not include accommodation. It pays for attendance in Italy only, so you cannot join a university mobility programme, take the company internship abroad, or do thesis research abroad. Students already studying at an Italian university, and holders of an Italian university degree, are not eligible at all.
Invest Your Talent in Italy, current call, 11th edition, Art. 2checked
The catch
The country list, not the course list, decides
Why
The programme is real and current, and the course catalogue is genuinely attractive, which is why Pakistani agency pages keep listing it. Article 2 reserves the scholarships for citizens of 23 countries who are permanently resident there, and the list is Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, Paraguay, Peru, People's Republic of China, Tunisia, Turkiye, Uruguay and Vietnam. Pakistan is not in the current call's country list. The second trap, for anyone who is eligible, is the age bar: applicants must have been born on or after 1 January 2000, which rules out most people returning to study after a few working years.
Where you apply
The portal, the papers, and one thing to check yourself.
You apply on the call's own portal, never through us.
We do not file this application for you and nobody can guarantee the award.
Where you apply, and who runs it
Online only, through the MY-APP registration on the Invest Your Talent portal. Applying there is the second step, not the first: you are only eligible if you have already asked the university itself for pre-admission to one of the courses listed in the programme, following that university's own procedure, and you may apply for one course only.
MAECI's Directorate General for Growth and Export Promotion offers it together with the ICE Agency and Uni-Italia. A Technical Committee made up of those three bodies screens the applications, allocates the scholarships against quotas fixed per country, and notifies winners by email.
7 documents the call asks for
See all 7, in the order the portal asks
- A transcript of the exams taken for the qualification that admits you to the master's, including the degree mark or CGPA, or a signed statement from the university that you have finished and are awaiting the certificate
- An English language certificate at CEFR B2 or above, from Cambridge, IELTS, TOEFL iBT, Trinity College ISE, PTE, Linguaskill, ESOL or TOEIC
- An Italian language certificate, or a signed commitment to take a classroom or self study Italian course before departure
- A video of no more than 59 seconds explaining why you want to study in Italy and what you would bring to an internship, in English or in Italian, with Italian scored more favourably
- A curriculum vitae et studiorum of one page at most
- A valid passport, and both passports if you are a dual national
- Everything in English, French or Spanish, otherwise an official translation plus the original
Check this yourself before you plan around it
The call does not publish how many scholarships the 11th edition offers, nor the quota set for each country, so there is no verified number of places. Whether a 12th edition opens for 2027-2028, and whether its country list changes, is not yet announced.
Asked about this award
The questions this one gets.
Short answers. Where the honest answer is that nobody publishes it, that is the answer given.
Has Invest Your Talent in Italy been discontinued?
No. The 11th edition ran for the 2026-2027 academic year, its call is published, and it sets renewal deadlines into July 2027. The portal shows applications closed because the May 2026 window ended, not because the programme stopped.
Can a Pakistani student apply?
No. Article 2 reserves the scholarships for citizens of 23 named countries who are permanently resident there, and Pakistan is not among them.
Does it cover health insurance?
No, and this is the difference against the MAECI scholarship. The call says the recipient must independently arrange health insurance for illness and accidents in Italy. Stamp duty and the regional right to education tax are also yours.
Do I need Italian?
Courses are taught in English and an Italian certificate is not mandatory, but it adds to your evaluation score, and without one you must sign a commitment to take an Italian course before you leave. Renewal in year two is conditional on having attended the Italian course the university offers.
Is the internship paid?
The call makes the curricular internship compulsory but does not state that it is paid. Uni-Italia describes the mandatory curricular internship as lasting roughly three months and unpaid.
Find out whether you fit this one.
You will see the degree you would apply for and what the visa wants in the bank. You will also see how much of the calendar is left.
We do not award any of the funding on this page. We cannot promise you any of it. Meeting a stated criterion is a fact. Being given the money is a decision somebody else makes.
The three questions
- What have you studied, and how did you do?
- What do you want to study in Italy?
- What can your family put behind it?
The full answer is on screen, free, with no account and no email. You get it whether or not it is the one you wanted.
Closed for this cycle€1,000 a year
Check Pakistan eligibility