Student D Type Visa for Phd studies

Member since 21 August 2019

zeeshanakram219New member21 April 2021 09:25:55

Hi,

I am Muhammad Zeeshan from Pakistan. I applied for Student (D Type) visa on 15 April 2021 in Lahore VFS global. I am enrolled in University of Liege and selected in European Commission H2020 MSCA research project. This project offers a handsome amount of money like 4500+ EUR monthly.

The embassy approached me through email after 2 days of application submission and asked me to send hosting agreement with Belgian university. I asked this thing to university and HR officer replied me that this agreement is necessary for researchers (PostDoc) not for students. You are seen as Doctoral student in our university not researcher.

I explained this thing to embassy and after one day embassy sent my visa application to Brussels for more verification and decision.

I attached admission letter of university showing that I am enrolled in Doctoral School of the university. Moreover, I attached invitation letter describing my scholarship amount and duration of the project etc, which was issued by my supervisor not by university. Was that enough to attach with visa application or I had to attach scholarship contract between me and professor/university? As invitation letter had this statement that contracts will be signed soon.

I want to know the past experience of the people regarding student visa and new insights about outcome of my visa application?

Was anything wrong with my application? The embassy was confused due to invitation letter provided by supervisor, which described that i will work on a research project. Although I will work on research project but i will be there as a PhD student not independent researcher like PostDoc.

My file will be sent to Belgium soon. How much time will immigration office take to make decision? How immigration office will do more verification about my application?

Thank you in anticipation

ZazaBE Active member

Member since 19 March 2021

ZazaBEActive member21 April 2021 10:57:29

I believe that you are experiencing difficulties because you are applying from your home country and not from Belgium. Hosting agreement is indeed given only to "employees" (you don't have to be a postdoc for this). For PhD I submitted my PhD scholarship contract since it was already signed when I applied, but I applied in BE directly because I was already here. Anyhow, I think everything will be ok. For the time, it can take a month or two (though I cannot tell you for sure how much), so you need to be patient and if they ask any additional document kindly provide or explain: if you cannot-why you cannot, or if you are still waiting-that you will have it soon etc.

zeeshanakram219 New member

Member since 21 August 2019

zeeshanakram219New member21 April 2021 12:06:08

ZazaBE wrote:
I believe that you are experiencing difficulties because you are applying from your home country and not from Belgium. Hosting agreement is indeed given only to "employees" (you don't have to be a postdoc for this). For PhD I submitted my PhD scholarship contract since it was already signed when I applied, but I applied in BE directly because I was already here. Anyhow, I think everything will be ok. For the time, it can take a month or two (though I cannot tell you for sure how much), so you need to be patient and if they ask any additional document kindly provide or explain: if you cannot-why you cannot, or if you are still waiting-that you will have it soon etc.

I hope everything will be fine. I am confused that I have provided scholarship letter issued by my supervisor who is in-charge person of European Commission Project in my university. What do you think, provision of supervisor letter is enough to convince about visa approval?

ZazaBE Active member

Member since 19 March 2021

ZazaBEActive member21 April 2021 12:50:54

I think it should be enough, but I don't know the regulations on this or how strict they are. In the meantime, if you sign your contract and are still waiting, best would be to contact the embassy again and send them this contract too. What you could also do is write to the responsible person at your university and ask if they could provide the contract signed from their side by scan for example. Then you could sign it yourself and send it to the embassy.