General Information

What does UROP do?

Put simply, UROP funds undergraduate research, scholarly and creative work with several types of grants. In other words, students get paid for participating in academic enrichment--scholarly activity which generally occurs outside the classroom (with some exceptions). UROP projects are essentially partnerships between CU's outstanding faculty and highly motivated and engaged students.

Types of grants include:

• Assistantships
• Individual
• Team Grants
• Research Seminars

Why seek funding for undergraduate projects?

Undergraduate research and creative activities provide the following:

• in-depth learning opportunities to pursue disciplinary interests of students' own choosing outside the classroom
• an understanding of the scholarly norms, methods, vocabulary, and assumptions of the field
• close student-faculty relationships and mentoring which enhance students' education--with the additional benefit of providing contacts for professional references when applying for other grants, scholarships, internships, graduate study and jobs
• academic and professional credentials which will aid students in future endeavors
• invaluable experience conceptualizing a project, estimating budgets and writing a professional-level grant proposal

Types of awards

Assistantships

Assistantships provide recipients with an hourly wage so that they can gain exposure to the fundamentals related to research, creative or scholarly work by working with a faculty member on an existing project. Students benefit from the guidance and mentoring of the faculty member while performing non-clerical scholarly tasks as contribution to the faculty member's work. Each assistantship carries a maximum award of $8/hour for 100 hours and are funded one time only. Assistantships are ideal for students who want to do research or creative work, but have little or no experience. Assistantships are funded three times a year for Fall, Spring, and Summer.

Individual Grants

Individual grants allow students to work with varying degrees of independence on their own projects under the guidance of a faculty sponsor. In some fields the project may represent a portion of a larger project (such as in a lab); in others, projects may be of the student's own design. Students applying for this grant should have enough knowledge of the research methods, procedures, or creative techniques necessary to perform independently. Students writing honors theses, creating fine arts or performance projects, or doing research while studying abroad would all apply for individual grants.

Students in the biosciences conducting laboratory research qualify for HHMI grants, provided by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. HHMI grants support full academic year projects and require recipients to participate in various professional development seminars and activities throughout the year. These activities are designed to integrate undergraduates into the scientific community while preparing them for post-baccalaureate goals such as graduate school and/or professional programs. Students will benefit from topics including Fundamentals of Applying to Graduate School, Science and Ethics, How to Write an Abstract, and Strategies for Assembling a Scientific Poster. Students will also participate in a poster presentation session at the end of the academic year. There is a slightly different application for HHMI projects.

Funding for individual grants varies. Projects funded during the academic year can receive a maximum grant of $1200. Summer and HHMI recipients can receive a maximum grant of $2400. Final decisions about funding amounts are at the discretion of UROP.

Team grants

Two or more undergraduates working together on research, creative or scholarly work under the guidance of a faculty sponsor should apply for a team grant. Customarily, each student has a designated, well-defined role in the project, and all students are expected to work as co-researchers. If the students on the project are simply assisting the faculty sponsor it would be more appropriate to apply for individual UROP Assistantships.

Funding up to $3000 per team project is available, but may not exceed $1200 per student on the team. Stipends are not available to students when the project earns them academic credit. In this case funds may only be used to support expenses associated with the project. If the object of a team grant project is to produce a publication, funding is limited to a maximum of $500 per student, not to exceed $3000, and all funds must be used for printing costs. Other criteria for publication projects include:

• Published work must be by undergraduates only.
• Publication must have a unique niche (i.e. the content can't be similar to another publication on campus).
• Applicants must have signed waiver and release forms for any models that are identifiable in the publication.
• No free advertising should be included in the publication.

Team grants are funded two times a year for academic year and summer projects.

Seminars

UROP will fund two different types of research seminars: 1) A seminar that focuses primarily on the faculty member's research, creative, or scholarly work with the goal of helping students understand both what scholarship in the field "looks like" and what faculty members do when they do research. 2) A seminar that focuses generally on research in the field by introducing students to an array of work by practitioners from the discipline. The intent here is, again, to show students what scholarship in the field looks like. In other words, after taking a UROP research seminar, students should have a good understanding of what it means to be a literary critic, a research biologist, a philosopher, a composer, etc. Seminars should be small (no fewer than 12 students and no more than 25) and are intended as pilot projects, with the hope that the department will fund subsequent versions of the course. Grant amounts are $4200 for course release, overload salary, or expenses associated with the seminar.

Eligibility criteria

Because UROP applications have risen in disproportion to increases in our budget we will a) limit the number of grants per student to two and b) prioritize first-time applicants. The only exception to this will be HHMI applicants, since funds for biomedical research come from another funding source (the Howard Hughes Medical Institute). In other words, students doing biomedical research can apply for and potentially be awarded more than two total HHMI grants throughout their undergraduate career. However, recipients of multiple HHMI awards may have lower priority if and when they apply for non-HHMI UROP funds. Continual funding for all students is never guaranteed. We recommend that you consult with the UROP coordinator to map out your application plans in order to maximize your funding. We are just one resource to help facilitate enrichment experiences outside the confines of the classroom setting. Other resources to consider in consultation with your faculty mentors are: available departmental or faculty grand funding, academic credit for independent study, work-study funding, or external funding.

• Students must be full-time undergraduates at CU-Boulder for the duration of the project's timeline (i.e. taking a minimum of 12 credit hours).
• Students applying for summer grants must be attending CU full time the semester before and after the summer project. The only exceptions to this are August graduates who may apply, within appropriate deadlines, for summer funding. August graduates must carry at least 6 credit hours during the summer that they work on the project.
• Students must have a faculty sponsor. See Finding a Faculty Sponsor section.

UROP attempts to fully fund as many students as possible. To help maximize available funds and provide opportunities for new students and faculty to participate in the program, priority for all awards will be given to first-time UROP applicants.

New in 09-10: Students doing independent projects or group research any time during the academic year must apply for funds in the Fall semester.

Application submission deadlines:

August 1 - Deadline for December graduates working on Research Assistantships or Individual Grants.

September 15 - Deadline for Individual and Team Grants conducted and completed in the Fall and/or Spring semesters of the current academic year. Deadline for Research Assistantships that start in the Fall.

December 1 - Deadline for Research Assistantships that start in the Spring.

March 1 - Deadline for all Summer Projects. (If the 1st falls on a weekend of the calendar year, applications are due the following Monday by 1pm.) August graduates must be enrolled in summer courses to apply for an end of career summer grant.

HHMI grant proposals are accepted only until September 15th, while funds last.

Faculty should submit seminar proposals one to two semesters in advance of the proposed course offering.