Twelve scholars from across Pakistan and the diaspora awarded graduate scholarships to Oxford, with new provincial and institutional partnerships widening access
To mark Pakistan’s Independence Day, the Oxford Pakistan Programme (OPP) has announced its graduate scholarship awards for 2026, supporting twelve scholars from across Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora to pursue graduate studies at the University of Oxford.
The awardees span disciplines from law, economics and the humanities to engineering, medicine and cancer science, reflecting the OPP’s central goal of ensuring that exceptional talent, regardless of geography or financial circumstance, can aspire to an Oxford education.
Founded six years ago by Pakistani academics and Oxford alumni, the OPP has grown into a major global initiative dedicated to widening access to Oxford for Pakistani students, supporting academic exchange, and building opportunities for the next generation of Pakistani scholars and leaders.
This year’s cohort is notable for its geographic and institutional breadth, with scholars drawn from communities including Swat, Nowshera, Azad Kashmir, Khangarh, Khairpur, Larkana, Shaheed Benazirabad and Karachi, educated across a mix of Pakistan’s leading private and public sector universities.
Four Scholars from Sindh, One from Baluchistan
Four scholars in this year’s cohort come from Sindh, supported through a graduate scholarship scheme the OPP established in partnership with the Government of Sindh. The initiative was announced in Oxford two years ago by Mr Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Mr Murad Ali Shah, aimed at widening access to Oxford for students from historically under-represented provinces.
The four are: Amarta Chandio of Shaheed Benazirabad, who will pursue an MSc in Clinical Embryology; Junaid Memon of Khairpur, admitted to a DPhil in Engineering Science; Mir Musawwar Ali of Larkana, who will read for an MSc in Economics for Development; and Faiza Rehman of Korangi, Karachi, also enrolled in an MSc in Economics.
Amarta graduated from LUMHS Jamshoro with the highest GPA in her cohort and four gold medals. Faiza studied Economics at IBA Karachi on a full scholarship, and both have worked on maternal health issues in rural Sindh. Mir Musawwar Ali, a LUMS graduate who received full undergraduate financial support, secured second position in Pakistan’s Central Superior Services examination, while Junaid Memon studied engineering at NED University before securing his place at Oxford.
Separately, the Benazir Bhutto Graduate Scholarship, supported by the Government of Baluchistan following an initiative launched by Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti in 2024, has gone to Maira Mehmood of Sohbatpur, a Quaid-e-Azam University graduate who will study public policy at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government.
New Partnerships Widen Access
The OPP has also named its inaugural Interloop Scholar, Saadia Khan, a COMSATS University Islamabad (Abbottabad campus) graduate who will pursue graduate study in cancer science, having previously earned the Campus Gold Medal, the Pakistan wide COMSATS Gold Medal, and the Haroon Rashid Merit Scholarship.
Under a new partnership between the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust and the OPP, the inaugural scholarship has been awarded to Sara Saleh of Swat, an International Islamic University Islamabad graduate currently serving as an Assistant Director at the State Bank of Pakistan. The OPP’s contribution to her scholarship is supported by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, one of the programme’s foundational donors.
The Tareen Scholarship, sponsored by Mr Ali Tareen for an outstanding student from South Punjab, has been awarded to Ali Hassan of Khangarh. A LUMS graduate on full merit scholarship, Ali was part of the LUMS team that won the 2026 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition’s Pakistan rounds, the university’s first such win in nine years, and will now read for the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL), one of Oxford’s most competitive degree programmes.
Manal Ahmed, a former Richard Traina Scholar at Clark University and currently at The Citizens Foundation in Karachi, will pursue graduate study in World Literatures, researching the intersection of climate and literature.
The OPP has partnered with Oxford’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies to support Hamza Khan, who will pursue an MPhil in Law examining the development of legal institutions in Pakistan’s merged tribal districts. Raised in a village in Nowshera district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Hamza studied at the Army Public School in Nowshera before completing his law degree at the University of Peshawar.
Commenting on this year’s cohort, Barrister Taimur Malik, founder of Courting the Law and an Oxford alumnus, said the Oxford Pakistan Programme continues to do quietly transformative work, and that this year’s class is a reminder of how much talent exists across Pakistan when access is made possible. He said he was particularly pleased to see two future lawyers among the scholars: Ali Hassan, and Hamza Khan. He congratulated both, adding that Pakistan’s legal profession will be stronger for having scholars of this calibre trained at Oxford.
Widening Access for British Pakistanis
The OPP has also awarded partial scholarship support to Abdul Rehman Noor, who completed his early education in Poonch, Azad Kashmir, and will pursue an MPhil in Economics with the aim of contributing to Pakistan’s economic development. The programme continues to support Kayanat Iltaf, a DPhil candidate in Social Policy and Intervention, jointly with the Leverhulme Foundation.
The OPP said its scholarship decisions rest on three principal considerations: academic excellence, the potential for the scholarship to be genuinely life changing, and the candidate’s capacity to contribute to Pakistan’s development or to Pakistani communities overseas.
The programme’s Graduate Scholarship scheme is supported by the Malala Fund, Mr Ali Tareen, Mr Musadaq Zulqarnain of Interloop Limited, Farooq Sheikh through the Sheikh Family Foundation, the Hamid Ismail Foundation, Syed Sheheryar Ali of Treet Corporation, and a growing community of Pakistani business leaders and professionals, including Mr Mohammed Khaishgi of The Resource Group, Ms Faheen Allibhoy, Mr Areeb Azam, Mr Ammad Ahmad of AHM Capital, Mr Shamyl Malik and Dr Omer Suleman of Haruko, Pir Muhammad Sadiq of Luari Sharif, Ms Khadija Amer of Dunya Foundation, Dr Tariq Zaman of Cromwell Hospital London, former Federal Secretary Mr Owais Ahmed Pirzada, and an anonymous London based donor.
The programme has also received strong institutional support from Lady Margaret Hall, particularly its Principal, Christine Gerrard, along with the Blavatnik School of Government, the Oxford Department of International Development, and the Faculty of Law. Dr Ben Higgins, Tutor for Graduates at Lady Margaret Hall, led the organisation of this year’s selection process.
Reflecting on the announcement, the OPP team, comprising Professor Adeel Malik, Dr Talha Pirzada, Mr Haroon Zaman, and Ms Minahil Saqib, said the programme’s ambitions extend beyond the scholarships themselves: “OPP is ultimately an investment in Pakistan’s human potential… Our task is to ensure that a young person’s birthplace, university or financial circumstances do not determine the limits of their ambition.”
