Global Leadership Summer Programme in Kuala Lumpur

Analysis of feedback from Queen Mary 2025 GLSP participants shows multiple positive impacts on their employability skills. Pre- versus post-programme: 

• The number of participants reporting an “excellent” level rose by 27% for confidence and also by 27% for technical skills and knowledge in their field of expertise. 

• The number of participants reporting an “excellent” level rose by 20% in all of the following areas: communication; resilience, flexibility, and adaptability; problem-solving and innovative thinking; and employability and job market preparedness.  

• Overall, improving their technical skills and knowledge in their field of expertise was the second highest improved skills area for participants, with an 18% increase on their pre-programme levels. This followed their improvement in foreign language skills by an overall average of 22%.  

Visit our Benefits of going abroad page to learn more about how participants are positively impacted by going abroad.

• Vlog by Mutahar on our YouTube channel 
• Kuala Lumpur Takeover by Isha on our @qmulgo Instagram account
• Blog post by Tasnim on Queen Mary Global Bloggers - "Food, Friends, and Finding Myself in Malaysia"
• Read participant feedback in short testimonials below

Common Purpose is an international non-profit organisation that focuses on leadership development, with the goal of fostering inclusive, cross-boundary leadership in various sectors and communities. Founded in 1989 by Julia Middleton, Common Purpose offers leadership programmes for individuals and organisations aimed at building leaders capable of working across cultures, disciplines, and social divisions. Its work is based on the belief that strong leadership is essential for creating more inclusive, sustainable, and cohesive societies. Common Purpose has worked with many UK universities in London and across the country to deliver short-term, immersive and life-changing development programmes. Queen Mary has previously worked with Common Purpose on programmes delivered in Stockholm and Malaysia.   

One of Asia’s fastest growing and Malaysia’s largest cities, Kuala Lumpur is a safe, interconnected, and multicultural city located at the crossroads of Southeast Asia. The city boasts a diverse range of residents, which reflects Malaysia’s mix of Malays, Chinese, Indians, and Indigenous peoples. The city is bursting with different cultures, cuisines, languages, and religions. Islam is the predominant religion in both Kuala Lumpur and the rest of Malaysia, with a significant portion of the population identifying as Muslim. You can commute easily around the city via either modern, clean and air-conditioned public transport (which includes the KL Monorail) or the popular Southeast Asian e-hailing/taxi service called Grab (available for cheap rides around town). With its thriving economy, well-developed infrastructure and fantastic job opportunities for expats, Kuala Lumpur is an excellent choice for you to have a professional, career-building and intercultural experience abroad. 

Please note that all applicants must be available for the entire required programme duration as per dates below. There is no flexibility as to the programme start and end dates. 

• 18 January 2026 (23.59 UK time) – Application must be received and complete by this deadline, no exceptions/extensions will be considered (instructions below). The Global Partnerships and Opportunities team will be unable to review draft answers to application questions or provide content guidance.
• Late January - early February – Applications will be reviewed and scored by the GPO team (see application scoring process).
• Early February – Application outcome shared with applicants. GPO will make successful applicants an offer that they will need to accept by a set deadline. Several additional students will be made offers to be reserve candidates on a waitlist and therefore may be invited to participate if a successful candidate withdraws before 01 May.
• February until early June (pre-departure) – If selected, you and other participants would prepare together for your participation in the programme, both with the GPO team and Common Purpose. In addition to pre-departure support, the GPO team will be coordinating with you for travel logistics and reservation bookings.
• March – Pre-programme workshop 1 delivered by Careers and Enterprise
• Late March/April – Pre-departure briefing(s) for all outgoing summer 2026 Queen Mary students
• Late April/May – Pre-programme workshop 2 delivered by Careers and Enterprise
• 01 May – Waitlisted candidates are released if they are not needed to replace participants. Any of these students may remain ‘on call’ after 01 May if they would be prepared to depart at short notice.
• 04/05 June – Outbound flight to Kuala Lumpur together with all Queen Mary participants
• 08 June – 03 July – You participate in the “Global Futures” programme on site in Kuala Lumpur, delivered by Common Purpose in coordination with host organisations.
• 04 July – Return flight back to the UK
• Late July – Common Purpose online reflection workshop
• August/September - Post-programme workshop 3 delivered by Careers and Enterprise

Students who qualify for the higher groups in Queen Mary's Funding priority group system will be prioritised, with priority group (1) being considered the highest need. This ensures that available resources and subsidised opportunities are allocated to students from low-income and widening participation backgrounds first. 

Qualifying in a priority group based on household income is determined by the annual household income data held by Student Finance for the current academic year as of 18 January 2026. If your household income is not assessed by Student Finance, or if you have not provided your consent before this date for Student Finance to grant your university access to your data (you need to verify this directly with Student Finance, yet if you are already in receipt of a Queen Mary Bursary, we have access to your data), Queen Mary will not have access to this and will therefore not be able to consider you for the relevant priority group on the basis of annual household income. 

As early as possible before the deadline, we advise that you verify your household income data held by Student Finance is up to date for your situation and that you have provided Student Finance with your explicit consent for this information to be shared with Queen Mary, so that your data in our records is available and up to date by 18 January 2026.

The GLSP is a funded programme, and the following benefits may be available to participants: 

• Queen Mary will arrange for return air travel and from London to Kuala Lumpur for all participants. The majority of the cost will be covered via Turing Scheme travel grants.
• The remainder of the cost of air travel will be covered by Queen Mary funds through the Global Leadership Summer Programme (GLSP) Bursary. Participants do not receive any funds for this directly but are subject to respecting the terms and conditions of this funding to remain eligible for the programme (participants receive a Grant Agreement to sign). In addition to the remainder flight cost, the GLSP Bursary covers the:
  • Common Purpose programme fee for each participant (£1140)
  • Cost of hotel accommodation in Kuala Lumpur for the duration of the GLSP, final exact cost per student TBC (Queen Mary will also make the booking arrangements.)
• Participants will be eligible to receive a cost-of-living subsistence grant from the Turing Scheme (this is not a loan). 90% of the total amount would be paid to participants before departure once pre-programme requirements are met, and the remaining 10% upon successful completion of the programme and participation requirements:
  • £21 per day (priority groups 1+2), totalling approximately £588 for the programme duration
  • £17 per day (priority groups 3-7), totalling approximately £476 for the programme duration
• Queen Mary will also provide support for travel logistics and may allow participants to claim for reimbursement of specific additional costs upon evidence of expenditure (e.g. passport, visa, required vaccinations).

Students selected to participate will need to sign contractual documentation accepting their offer of a place on the programme and agree to the completion of documentation related to receiving the funding* outlined above. 

(*) All applicants should consult the Withdrawal Policy near the end of the Global Leadership Summer Programme - Overview and Terms and Conditions [PDF 319KB] before applying to understand the reimbursement implications for participants if they withdraw from the programme. 

You must meet all the below criteria to be considered eligible to participate:  

• Your ethnicity on your MySIS record appears as “Asian – Bangladeshi”
• Be classed as a student with “Home” fee status (“Overseas” fee status students are ineligible)
• Be a fully enrolled, undergraduate Queen Mary student in developmental year 2, having completed developmental year 1 (i.e. not in the final year of studies)
• Be a student in one of the academic schools within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (you can view the list of academic schools eligible on this webpage)
• Have had limited access to travel/study abroad opportunities during your previous and current studies. This equates to not already having applied for or are holding a Conditional offer of exchange for the next academic year, currently studying abroad on exchange, or being enrolled on a ‘with a year abroad’ degree programme
• Be available to travel to Kuala Lumpur and participate in the programme with Common Purpose for the entire “Global Futures” programme duration period, as well as complete all pre- and post-programme workshop programming as part of the GLSP (see "2026 timeline and key dates" section).
• Degree apprentices must ensure their availability with respect to both being granted leave from an employer and required semester C/sprint week teaching taking place during the summer. 

Read the Global Leadership Summer Programme - Overview and Terms and Conditions [PDF 319KB], especially the Withdrawal Policy, before applying.

You must complete both below steps by the deadline:

1. Complete the application form here (this includes the application questions)
2. Email your most recent HEAR to summerschool@qmul.ac.uk  

In the application form, you will need to prepare and submit answers* to both of the following two essay questions (among other general questions regarding your personal details, etc.): 

• How will participating in the Global Leadership Summer Programme help you grow your leadership skills to achieve your academic and personal goals, and prepare you for future challenges, both in your studies and career? Max 250 words.
  
  
• Describe a situation in which you had to adapt to a new or unfamiliar environment. What approach did you take, what did you learn in the process, and how will you apply this when navigating obstacles during the Global Leadership Summer Programme? Max 150 words. 

^{(*) Answers detected as potentially containing AI-generated content may be marked down in the scoring process.}  

IMPORTANT: Neither late nor incomplete applications will be considered, therefore, ensure that you complete both steps carefully by the deadline of 18 January 2026 at 23.59 (local UK time). 

The Global Partnerships and Opportunities (GPO) team will process and verify all submitted applications.  

Eligible applications will be scored out of 100 total points, and GPO will prioritise students with the highest scores to be participants. You will be scored based on three categories: 

• Academic standing when compared to the other applicants, according to your 1st year grades on your HEAR (max 40/100)
• Written responses to the two essay questions (each max 15/100)
• Funding priority group that you qualify for (max 30/100). Priority group (1) students receive 30/100, priority group (2) students receive 20/100, and all other priority groups receive 10/100). 

This scoring system ensures that spaces for funded opportunities first reach students who perform well academically, submit strong applications, and come from a widening access background (i.e. whose access to such opportunities would be otherwise limited without financial support).

If there are more successful applications than spaces available, there will be a waitlist.

If offered a place on the waitlist (at the time of learning the outcome of your application), you would be asked to accept or decline the place by a set deadline.

If you decide to not be on the waitlist, we will offer that waitlist space to a further candidate who submitted an eligible application.

If you accept a place on the waitlist, you will be expected to attend all relevant meetings, workshops and information sessions to prepare you in the event that you end up participating.

Should a GLSP participant drop out before 01 May 2026, we will inform the student who is the first in the waitlist to participate in the programme. The GPO team may decide to keep the waitlist active after 01 May for any late-stage withdrawals, if candidates are willing to remain on the waitlist.

You will stay in a hotel with the other programme participants and share a room with one other Queen Mary student (same sex). It will be twin rooms so you have your own bed but will share the room you are sleeping in and a bathroom. If you have any questions or concerns about accommodation arrangements, please get in touch with the GPO team at summerschool@qmul.ac.uk.  

Students must provide required details to Queen Mary staff when asked to facilitate the booking process smoothly and efficiently. Failure to provide/confirm details by a requested date may result in your withdrawal from the programme. 

Participants on the Global Leadership Summer programme (GLSP) will be required to: 

Pre-departure:

• Attend all required workshops and meetings coordinated/delivered by the GPO team and Common Purpose
• Complete all required contractual documentation
• Provide all information requested by the GPO team in a timely manner and by the stipulated deadlines

During the placement:

• Participate fully in all meetings and work experience sessions of the programme as required on site by Common Purpose and your host organisation during the placement abroad
• Engage with Queen Mary and respond to and action all emails received by GPO staff

After the placement (specific deadlines apply to the below and will be communicated in your funding paperwork):

• Submit post-mobility paperwork as required
• Submit evidence that you attended in-person and completed the “Global Futures” programme in Kuala Lumpur in full, which will include both a Confirmation of Stay and certificate of completion
• Complete a short reflective journal entry reflecting on your experiences (academic, extracurricular, and social) during the Common Purpose programme and key learnings, to be submitted to summerschool@qmul.ac.uk. Completing the reflective journal entry will enable your participation in this GPO managed summer programme to be included and recognised on your HEAR.

Participants must also take part in promotional activities that will be used to advertise the opportunity in subsequent years. If selected, you must:

• Take a minimum of 10 good quality photographs while abroad, showing both you participating in the Common Purpose “Global Futures” programme and in the Kuala Lumpur area (with you featuring in at least 5, with explanatory text) that Queen Mary will use in publications, web content, social media and/or promotional materials (both digital and printed). If you do not wish for photographs featuring yourself to appear in any publications, you would need to indicate this when submitting your final photographs.
• Partake in a minimum of one of the following activities:
  • Complete an Instagram Stories day-long Takeover or three reels to be published on the Global Partnerships and Opportunities' @qmulgo Instagram account
  • Post about your experience on your personal social media or professional networking platforms (e.g. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X)  
  • Offer your services at forthcoming Queen Mary Open/Offer Holder Day or Global Partnerships and Opportunities events
  • Create a 2–5-minute vlog of your experience
  • Produce a written blog post of your experience for publication on Queen Mary Global Bloggers

If your degree course at Queen Mary is a degree apprenticeship, your eligibility to participate in an outgoing summer/short-term opportunity abroad is subject to employer confirmation (as you would be requesting time away) and Queen Mary teaching schedules.

Therefore, you must ensure your own availability to participate in your chosen outgoing summer programme before you submit an application for an outgoing summer/short-term programme managed by the Global Partnerships and Opportunities (GPO) team. Therefore, before submitting any application to the GPO team, you must: 

• Secure the approval of your employer, to avoid being ineligible to participate after being made an offer to go abroad. Previous student feedback suggests that degree apprentices have most success in securing employer approval if the summer programme has relevance to their work and/or they can convince the employer of the benefit to the company of their participation in their desired programme. If your employer has issue with you being away for three to four weeks (for example), consider a summer programme with a shorter duration such as two weeks.  
• Check your Queen Mary teaching schedule for conflicts, as many degree apprenticeships have semester C teaching which may also include a mandatory, one-week in-person "sprint week" in the summer where teaching is factored in for off-the-job hours. Degree apprentices cannot miss sprint week due to attendance requirements of those degree programmes, which are signed in paperwork at the start of the programme. Any absence will impact your grade in your course and may jeopardise your ability to obtain an offer of work at the end of your apprenticeship. If you are interested in a programme abroad that takes place during semester C teaching and/or sprint week, you will need to consider an alternative programme whose dates are compatible with your availability. 

Failure to do so in advance, and if the GPO team learns at a later stage of your required presence on campus during the programme, this could result in your withdrawal from the programme. 

If your application is successful and you go on to participate in a summer/short-term programme abroad, this placement can be permanently recognised on your official Queen Mary transcript: the Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR). This is does not affect your Queen Mary degree classification, nor does the result you achieved abroad appear on your HEAR.

To have your placement abroad included on your HEAR

Your placement abroad must last 2-6 weeks in duration and be completed in full, and you must complete all 'After mobility' requirements as laid out in your Checklist by the stated deadlines (including completion/submission of your agreed promotional activity). You would receive a blank template document of the short reflective journal to complete at the same time as receiving your Checklist and other contractual documentation before mobility. You would then complete this and submit to summerschool@qmul.ac.uk no later than four weeks after the end of your short-term/summer placement abroad or by 31 August (whichever comes first).

The GPO team then sends Registry a list of those students who have met the requirements by the deadline. Once processed by Registry, the entry appears on your HEAR as a QM Extra under section 6.1, as “GO Summer! Short-term summer school placement abroad.”

Note: If you do not complete the above process by the deadline above, it will not be possible to add this QM Extra retrospectively at a later date, so you would not receive recognition for it on your HEAR.

We want all of our students to be able to enjoy the international opportunities we offer and get the most out of their placements abroad, including students with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

If you think you might need any additional support in going abroad of whatever kind, it is a good idea to discuss this as soon as possible with us in the GO team (summerschool@qmul.ac.uk) and our support teams in the University such as the Disability and Dyslexia Service and the Advice and Counselling Service. We work closely with them and, with your permission, they can get in touch with our office and you to see how you might be best supported if you are interested in going abroad. Please know that disclosing any SEND needs will in no way affect the score of any application you submit to go abroad, nor the merit you have for studying at a certain destination.

You may also be interested in this "Mobility with Disability" guide published by Omio, with some tips and guidance about going abroad as a student with SEND.

Preparation and research:

Please be aware that support for students with SEND at a destination abroad can differ substantially from the support you may receive at Queen Mary. In some places this might be similar, but in other places, this may be very different or non-existent, depending on the destination. Students are expected to do some research into their selected host destination(s) and to have had relevant conversations with Queen Mary staff (GO staff and/or the Disability and Dyslexia Service) before submitting an application to Queen Mary; this increases the chances of you having access to the support that you need to thrive academically. 

If you are a student with SEND, we recommend for discuss your application plans with Queen Mary so we can help you consider your options, advise on potentially optimal destinations, and to plan ahead to see what support may be available at a potential destination that you are interested in. Depending on your destination, any adjustments you might need on your placement may take some time to confirm whether those would be available for you abroad and, if so, to connect you with appropriate services to arrange them.