Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship the country the status of "international basket case". While the problems of Iran were no longer front-page news, it said, they still existed. In the circumstances, the editorial concluded, "A scholarship at The Queen’s College in memory of Neda Soltan is, indeed, politically motivated, and admirably so". UK diplomatic sources, speaking anonymously to "The Times", said that if the government had been asked, it would have advised against the creation of the scholarship, because Iran would see it as an act of provocation, and because it would interfere with efforts to free Iranians working for the British Embassy in Tehran
Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship without connections to the college and some who the college said had taken "significant risks in order to donate". The decision to name the scholarship after Agha-Soltan was that of the donors rather than the college: Paul Madden, the Provost of the college, said that "within reason" donors decided the name of a scholarship. The scholarship pays college fees of about £4,000 over a two-year period. It is open to all students at Queen's studying for post-graduate degrees in philosophy, with preference given to Iranian nationals or those with Iranian heritage. The first holder of the scholarship was Arianne Shahvisi,