RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

"As a student, I won a prize that allowed me to spend a summer travelling through Europe and to study first-hand buildings and cities that I knew only from the pages of books. It was a revelation – liberating and exhilarating in so many ways.

Today, it is the privilege of the Norman Foster Foundation to support the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, which I hope will have a lasting legacy – offering the chance for discovery and the inspiration for exciting new work – for generations to come." Lord Norman Foster

The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship offers one scholarship of £7,000 to a student of architecture to support international research on a topic and at locations of their choice.

The topic of the research should, however, relate to the sustainable survival of cities and fall under one of the following themes:

learning from the past to inform the future
the future of society
density of settlements
use of resources
quality of urban life
transport

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply, students must be enrolled in, and have successfully completed at least the first year of a professional qualification in architecture from a school invited by RIBA.

Please note that nominations for this scholarship are made by the schools of architecture invited (and countersigned by the head of school) and not directly by individual students, as we only accept one application per school.

If you wish to apply, we recommend that you contact your head of school and express your interest in being nominated. Find out the full list of invited schools.

How to apply

Please read the guidance notes (PDF) in full before submitting your online application. These guidance notes contain important details about the information you need to provide in the online form.

Access the online application form

You will need to follow the instructions to register for an account first, and then select the ‘RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2024’ form to begin your application for this award. You will receive an automatic email notification upon submission of your application.

The deadline for applications is 3pm (BST) 16 May 2024. Applications will not be accepted after this time.

If you have any issues with the online application form, please email student.funding@riba.org.

2023 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient

Martha Pomasonco 700 x 700png — Martha Pomasonco (University of Lima, Peru), winner of the 2023 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

RIBA is pleased to announce Martha Pomasonco of the University of Lima (Peru) as the winner of the 2023 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship for her project “Upgraded Barrios”.

Martha intends to use the £7,000 travel scholarship to gather valuable first-hand information on the impact of neighborhood improvement projects in Latin America. Through direct observation and in-depth interviews, Martha’s work will evaluate and compare the impact of the different projects she visits. The research aims to provide lessons and strategies that can be applied to future interventions.

​RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship

2023 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient

Previous RIBA Norman Foster Scholars:

RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship