Dear applicants for the Erik Holst MM2017 Scholarship,

It is with great pleasure that we announce the results from the evaluation of all applications for the MM2017 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 – March Meeting 2017 in Montenegro.

We received 94 applications in total, which is a historical record for us, 94 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:

Ms. Dana SHUBAT from Syria!

Congratulations!

The Board of Directors of the Fund will be in touch with her 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 November 6th, 2016 over the IFMSA General server, Erik Holst Facebook page and erikholstfund.com and provided a timespan of 4 weeks for receiving applications online. The first announcement was also posted on various IFMSA-related Facebook groups, and was followed by 2 reminders as the deadline approached. The deadline for receiving applications expired on December 1st, 2016 at 23:59 (GMT/UTC). The application procedure was done at our website 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, and those who had previously applied for our scholarship programme 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 7 finalists in total, because we encountered ties in some Regions. Then, a 2nd round of evaluation followed, starting with these 7 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 finalists. We are sorry that we could not give more scholarships this time, but hopefully we will be able to do so for the next GA, that is the AM2017! 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 erikholstfund.com for more news & updates on the GA Scholarships and other upcoming grants, as we will be enriching its content soon, after the scholarship is received, as we shall be following our grantee Ms. SHUBAT and her experience at the IFMSA GA- MM2017!

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), Xaviour Walker (Advisor) and Omar Cherkaoui (IFMSA President).