Dear applicants for the IFMSA GA scholarship 2015,
Dear IFMSA Alumni,

It is with great pleasure that we announce the results from the evaluation of all applications for this year’s IFMSA GA Scholarship, provided by the Prof. Erik Holst Fund to a promising medical student, member of IFMSA, in order to cover some part (if not all) of the expenses for his/her participation at the IFMSA General Assembly – August Meeting 2015 in Ohrid, FYR of Macedonia.

We received 78 applications in total, which is a milestone for us, as we launched this scholarship for the first time ever, 78 excellent applications from all 5 IFMSA Regions. After a thorough, 2-rounds-long evaluation that lasted a week, we finally reached to the winner, who is:

Mr. Surendra Sapkota, 5th year medical student from Nepal!

Congratulations!

The Board of Directors of the Fund will be in touch with him in the following days in order to arrange properly how the scholarship will be received by its beneficiary.

We would like to take this opportunity and provide you with full details on how the whole evaluation procedure took place, in terms of transparency.

The Fund first announced the call for applications for the scholarship on 23 March 2015 (over the IFMSA General server, a publication in the MSI distributed at the MM2015 in Turkey preceded that) and provided a timespan of at least 38 days for receiving applications online. The first announcement was also posted on various IFMSA-related Facebook groups, and was followed by 2-3 reminders as the deadline approached. The application procedure was done at our website http://www.erikholstfund.com by filling in an online application form, which included a CV and a Motivation Letter of each applicant as a prerequisite for application submission. Through these two texts, we would be able to better become acquainted with each candidate and take a thorough look into their aspirations from their possible participation in the GA, their vision of IFMSA and themselves in it, as well as their background and achievements both academic, professional and personal. As the scholarship aims mainly in students who cannot attend the GA due to financial constraints, special attention was given to any relevant information provided by the applicant. Applicants that haven’t attended a GA before, were also seen in a more favorable way.

After the 1st round of evaluation, a ranking list of all applicants was determined. Then, all applicants were arranged according to IFMSA Region and the first of each Region was chosen, which provided us with a list of 11 finalists in total, because we encountered ties in some Regions. Then, a 2nd round of evaluation followed, starting with these 11 finalists, which led us to the final ranking list that gave the winner of the scholarship.

Finally, we would like to thank once again all those who applied, especially those who made it to the list of the 11 finalists. We are sorry that we could not give more scholarships this first time, but hopefully we will be able to do so for the next GA, that is the MM2016! We do encourage all of the applicants to reapply next time, when the call for applications is released! We will be happy to receive your applications once again when time comes!

Check our website http://www.erikholstfund.com for more news & updates on the GA Scholarship 2015 and other upcoming grants, as we will be enriching its content soon, after the scholarship is received, as we shall be following our grantee Mr. Sapkota and his experience at the IFMSA GA!

Kind regards,
Konstantinos M. Roditis
Chair, Prof. Erik Holst Fund Board of Directors

The Prof. Erik Holst Fund Board of Directors: Konstantinos Roditis (Chair), Yon Chong (Secretary), Stefan Buttigieg (External Relations Officer) and Jonathan Schuetze (Liaison Officer to IFMSA).