KTH Field Studies - Travel grant for degree projects in low- and middle-income countries

Get a travel grant to write your degree project in a low- and middle-income country in, for example, Latin America, Africa, or Asia. This is an excellent opportunity for you who want to work with projects that can make a clear difference to communities worldwide.

KTH-studenterna tillsammans med en medarbetare hos lantbrukaren/kaffeproducenten

Read about the students field study

KTH students David Sigge and Filip Borgström spent two months in Thailand as part of their degree project in industrial economics.

Student field study: how coffee beans can lift farmers out of poverty

KTH Field Studies, FS, is a KTH-funded travel grant that gives you, as a KTH student, the opportunity to carry through your degree project, at the bachelor's or master's level, in a low- or middle-income country. Through this opportunity, you can increase your knowledge, understanding, and experience of challenges and environments in low- and middle-income countries. The field studies have to result in a degree project in English at the bachelor's or master's level (15 or 30 ECTS credits). The stay abroad needs to be at least eight consecutive weeks. The amount of the travel grant is 15000 SEK per person.

An FS study is characterized by a connection to the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 . FS prepares you as a student to work in a global context and to strengthen your knowledge about the Sustainable Development Goals. The project must also be linked to at least one of the 17 global goals for sustainable development and Agenda 2030, as well as to the seven priorities that the government has established for Swedish development cooperation .

The seven priorities are:
1. Poverty alleviation through job creation, trade, and education
2. Improved health for the most vulnerable
3. Promote freedom and fight oppression
4. Expanded and efficient climate aid
5. Strengthen the freedom and empowerment of women and girls
6. Strengthened synergies between aid and migration policy
7. Strengthened humanitarian support to save lives and alleviate distress

The FS travel grant is a way to partly finance your field studies abroad. Please note however that you can write your degree project abroad also without the FS travel grant.

Do you have questions about FS? Send an email to fs-info@kth.se .

Step-by-step guide for KTH Field Studies

What is a low- or middle-income country?

The OECD DAC List shows countries and territories eligible to receive development assistance, and are considered low- and middle-income countries in this context.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the FS travel grant, you need to:

be a student in a programme on bachelor's or master's level at KTH
accomplish a degree project at the bachelor's or master's level

You also need to have a sufficient amount of completed credits within your programme:

If you intend to write your bachelor's degree project abroad, you must have 120 ECTS credits after period 1 of the academic year in which you apply to KTH Field Studies.
If you intend to write your master's degree project abroad, you must have 180 ECTS credits from study years 1-3, as well as 45 ECTS credits on the advanced level after period 1 of the academic year in which you apply to KTH Field Studies.
Applicants who only study a master's program at KTH and have taken a bachelor's degree at another university than KTH must have obtained 45 credits in completed courses at KTH up to, and including, study period 1 of the academic year you apply to KTH FS.

Application

You apply in the KTH's application system Mobility Online. The application is made in several steps. In the first part, you fill in a form with personal details, contact information, and summarised information about your project, etc.

When you have submitted the form, you will receive an email from Mobility Online asking you to register via the link in the email and upload the following documents:

A portrait photo.
A copy of your passport.
A project description in English, including a preliminary budget. Find more information on Template for project plan, KTH Field Studies .
A certificate from your supervisor or examiner at KTH regarding the project's adequacy for your degree project.
A certificate from the contact person in the host country, preferably directed to KTH, showing that you are welcome to conduct your field studies in the host country.
Other relevant certificates, such as language certificates (for languages other than Swedish and English), certificates regarding previous development studies, etc.

If you apply together with someone else, you must each submit an application, but information about the project, etc. can of course be the same. In the application, if you are applying with someone else, you also need to enter the name of the person(s) you are applying with.

Once you have started your application in Mobility Online, you can work on it until the application deadline. A complete application, including the required documents, needs to be uploaded to the application before the application deadline.

Selection

Based on the applications, a selection will be made where your suitability will be assessed, as well as your project's relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals and the project's feasibility. The eligibility requirements, as well as the requirements for the implementation, need to be fulfilled for you to get a travel grant. You can find more details regarding the assessment of the applications on the page for the Assessment Criteria for KTH Field Studies .

Possibility of receiving an MFS scholarship

The students whose project applications received the highest ranking during the selection may be offered a Minor Field Studies (MFS) scholarship instead. MFS scholarships are financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the MFS scholarship is SEK 30,000. KTH will have 8 MFS scholarships to distribute to students for field studies during the spring semester of 2025. It is not possible to receive both an MFS scholarship and a KTH FS travel grant at the same time.

MFS scholarships can only be awarded to students with Swedish citizenship or with a permanent residence permit in Sweden, and only to projects in countries that are on the SIDA list of countries with which Sweden conducts development cooperation. Students who receive the MFS scholarship must have completed their field study period at the latest 15 of May 2025.

Sidas countries list. (pdf 275 kB)

Project

You can find a project in various ways, for example, through your supervisor or examiner at KTH or through your contacts. You can find a few project ideas below.

KTH has regional advisors you can contact for assistance with eventual contacts and projects. To contact the regional advisors, or if you have general questions about KTH Field Studies, email fs-info@kth.se . State at which programme you are studying, what you want to write your degree project about and which country/region(s) you are interested in.

Below you can find a few project suggestions from Engineers Without Borders (EWB) and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Send an e-mail to fs-info@kth.se if you are interested in any of the projects.

Engineers without Borders (EWB)

About Engineers without Borders (EWB): Engineers without Borders in Sweden is an NGO focused on engineering solutions and sustainable technology at the heart of the green transition. EWB is a partner of Build up Nepal, collaborating to research innovative ways to replace part of the cement content in CCB with rice husk ash and other waste materials and alternative stabilizers. EWB coordinates volunteers from both industry and academia. EWB has been working on research into CSEB technology alongside Build up Nepal for the last 5 years.
Build up Nepal was established following the 2015 earthquake in Kathmandu, and has brought proven
resilient CCB technology to Nepal. Build up Nepal has supported more than 300 Micro-, Small,
Medium-sized Enterprises, MSMEs, to produce Compressed Concrete Blocks (CCBs), for over 10,000
houses in Nepal.
What EWB offers: During your thesis writing with EWB-SWE you will get concrete experience in how
international development projects are run. We have experts within different competence areas who will
support you throughout the process. EWB-SWE does not offer any additional funds.
Requirement: We want everyone who does their bachelor's or master's thesis with us to commit to providing EWB-SWE with a project report in addition to the academic report that you provide the university. We also expect the students to be active as volunteers before and after their field visit to ensure that they are well-integrated with other volunteers and our systems. From experience, we know that this is most efficient.
Further development of building materials (pdf 649 kB)

A Shock Table Earthquake Simulation Study (docx 1.3 MB)

Comparative Structural Optimization of Interlocking Bricks (docx 4.0 MB)

Investigating and Mitigating Shrinkage Crack Formation (docx 3.4 MB)

Optimising Brick Mix (docx 3.4 MB)

Partial Replacement of Cement with Additives (docx 3.4 MB)

Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) — bridging science, policy and practice

We are an international non-profit research and policy organization that tackles environment and development challenges. We connect science and decision-making to develop solutions for a sustainable future for all. Our work spans climate, water, air and land-use issues, governance, the economy, gender and health. Stakeholder engagement is at the heart of our efforts to build capacity, strengthen institutions and equip partners for long-term change. Our knowledge and findings are accessible to decision-makers and civil society: as our own open access material, in leading academic journals, and repackaged for effective decision support. SEI has seven centers around the world – UK, the US, Thailand, Kenya, Estonia and Colombia. Our headquarters is in Sweden.

About the SEI internships
We aim to attract the most competent and skilled students and support their development by offering a professional environment with competent supervision. Recruitments are competitive and based on respect for the individual regardless of gender, gender identity or expression, age, union representation or political opinion, functional variation, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, nationality and marital or parental status.

General information on internships
Internship opportunities are directed to students at the master's level. While internships are generally open to all students, priority is given to matriculated university students for whom an internship is either part of their curriculum or a thesis project. Priority is also given to students from universities with whom SEI has collaboration agreements, such as KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University, and Lund University. We welcome applications from those that have specific interests that are of relevance to the work of SEI. In general, we expect candidates to have some prior knowledge of the research area in which they will be working. The internship is linked to the writing of a master’s thesis. All interns will have an SEI supervisor assigned and are welcome to be part of our research teams and knowledge sharing activities.

Internship period
We offer two internship periods per year in alignment with the Swedish academic year: January–June and August–January. The application period for an SEI internship during the spring semester takes place in October-November (and in April for the autumn semester).

Internship opportunities at SEI Latin America

Opportunity #1
‘Innovating the tourism industry in Colombia with digital technology and knowledge.’
Context:
The Colombian government, through the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism has identified low capacities among the different actors in the value chain and the national tourism authorities for business management, adopting new technologies, and developing a sustainable, differentiated, and competitive tourism sector. To solve this problem, the project aims to implement a comprehensive strategy for innovation and digital transformation in Colombia that contributes to strengthening business management capacities and adopting new technologies by the actors in the tourism sector's value chain at the national and sub-national levels.
As part of the project´s implementation, SEI LAC will:
• Design and implement a living lab on sustainable tourism in Puerto Nariño – Amazonas.
• Design and implement a national incubation and acceleration program on innovation and entrepreneurship on tourism, following a bootcamp methodology.
Objective:
The intern will support SEI Latin America in identifying international cases and best practices around sustainable, low-carbon tourism and digital technologies for tour operators, and Indigenous communities, among others. This information should be an input for the training modules on the bootcamp or living lab, for micro, small and medium enterprises and rural communities that are part of the tourism value chain in Colombia.

Opportunity #2
Wetland Hydrogeodesy - Measuring wetland water levels from space with geodetic observations
Supervisor: Sebastián Palomino. Research Associate II, SEI-LA
Project Summary
Wetlands store roughly 10% of global surface water in the terrestrial portion of the water cycle, cover roughly 9% of the Earth’s surface, and provide critical habitat for a wide variety of plant and animal species. Over the past century, many wetland areas have been lost, degraded, or stressed mainly due to human activities, such as water diversion, agricultural development, and urbanization, but also in response to natural processes, such as sea level rise and climate change. Global and regional monitoring of wetland health and responses to natural and anthropogenic stressors is essential and best conducted using satellite data due to wetlands’ vast extent and often inaccessibility. The project explores and tests data from multiple types of satellites to measure water levels in wetlands. The measurements generate detailed multi-temporal maps of wetland inundation extent, water levels, and water level changes that provide crucial information for multiple users, including water managers and decision-makers, wetland hydrologists, and wetland ecologists.

Opportunity #3
Integrating Multiple Scales: Connecting Rural-Urban Landscapes in the Mantiqueira Mountains, Southeast Brazil
Supervisor: Cláudia Coleoni, Research Associate II, SEI Latin America
Case study location: São Francisco Xavier District, Municipality of São José dos Campos, Brazil
Landscape: Mantiqueira Mountains, Atlantic Forest Biome
Project Overview:
This project explores how to integrate rural and urban landscapes to enhance ecosystem service provision across multiple scales, particularly within the São Francisco Xavier District. Situated in the Mantiqueira Mountains, this area is vital for water regulation and biodiversity within the Atlantic Forest Biome, one of the world’s most important and threatened ecosystems.
The project emphasizes the critical role of ecosystem restoration in headwaters and its far-reaching benefits across entire watersheds, particularly for downstream urban areas and the interconnected Cantareira System, which supplies water to São Paulo. The goal is to bridge local conservation efforts with broader regional planning frameworks by creating strategies that promote collaboration between rural ecosystem service providers (such as landowners) and urban beneficiaries, including cities dependent on these vital water resources.

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