Welcome to our website celebrating the successes and achievements of Rotary Scholars associated with Rotary in the Thames Valley. In Rotary District 1090 we are lucky enough to host a large number of Rotary Scholars each year. We have records going back to 1949, but we’re not in touch with everyone. We hope that on this site we can collect stories about people’s studies and careers since their scholarships. We hope that this site will develop into a useful resource for potential candidates for Rotary Scholarships, for past Scholars to share their stories, read about others and maybe link up with each other. We hope that it will also help us tell an amazing story about the value of the Rotary Scholarships awarded by the Rotary Foundation over more than 70 years to students working and studying in many countries across the globe.
You will find posts under the Rotary Years heading, on the year groups as well as from individual Rotary Scholars. They are all sorted under their scholarship year. All posts also appear in date order at the foot of this page. We hope to add a map so that Scholars can be found based on places of study and work, and by the clubs that have funded and hosted them.
You might spot that we don’t have any recent entries. These will appear shortly we hope. We have however just updated the information on our District 1090 scholarship for study in 2022/23. See the Information for Applicants page.
Use the Contact form to sign up for a monthly update on the latest posts and information.
Karen
December 2021
An Introduction to the Rotary Scholarship Programme
This is one of the world’s largest privately sponsored international scholarship programmes. It started in 1947 with the aim of furthering international understanding and goodwill, and over 70 years later it continues to be a great success.
The current scholarship model started in 2013. Rotary Scholarships are funded by Global Grants and are for overseas graduate study under one of Rotary’s six Areas of Focus for one to four years. More Rotary Scholars come to study in the UK than in any other country. Over the last few years, there have been an average of approximately 180 Rotary Scholars each year. In the last academic year there were around 240 Rotary Scholars.
During their studies abroad, Rotary Foundation Scholars are hosted by a club local to their place of study. They have opportunities to take part in club activities, meet the other Rotary scholars hosted in the district and to visit other clubs to speak about their studies and career aspirations.
We are extremely fortunate to have a large number of Scholars visiting our District each year. The majority study at the University of Oxford, but we also have some at the four other universities within our District: Oxford Brookes, Reading, New Bucks and Brunel Universities.
