State Scholarships Foundation/ IKY- Greece

State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) was founded in 1951 to offer young scientists grants for postgraduate studies, to broaden their horizons, utilize their skills and better serve our society. Based in Athens, IKY has a long history of promoting education, science, language and civilization as well as the development of these fields in today’s society, within the international environment. As a National Scholarships Agency, IKY plans, announces and implements various scholarship programmes in Greece and abroad, every year, for Greek citizens, foreigners of Greek origin, people of different nationalities, pupils, students, scientists, researchers, and artists. A significant number of influential members of the Greek society have been awarded an IKY scholarship, such as composer Mikis Theodorakis, sculptor and painter Yiorgos Zongolopoulos, painters Panagiotis Tetsis, Dimitris Mytaras and Kostas Tsoklis, sculptors Gerasimos Sklavos and Theodoros Papagiannis and many more. Moreover, due to its prestige, IKY has been honored with offers by great donors. Since 1987, IKY bears the responsibility of administration and dissemination of EU Programmes for Education (1987 Erasmus, 1990 Lingua, 1995-1999 Socrates I, 2000-2006 Socrates II, 2007-2013 Lifelong Learning Programme, Erasmus+ 2014-2020). In 2021 IKY was appointed National Agency for the current EU Erasmus+ Programme (2021-2027). Since 1993, IKY has been a founding member of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), while it has collaborated with the European University Institute of Florence, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the European Space Agency, CERN, the French Embassy and the French Institute of Greece, the British Embassy and the British Council, the American Embassy and the Fulbright Foundation, and the Anhui University of Chinese Medicine. At the same time, IKY has collaborated with key players of the Greek economy, as in the case of the IKY-National Bank of Greece and the IKY-EYDAP scholars