The University of North Carolina at Pembroke Undergraduate Research and Creativity Center provides travel grant opportunities for students engaged in research, creative and performance activities.  These Student Travel Funds are designed to help defray costs associated with travel for extracurricular research, or to conferences, meetings, exhibits, or performances where the student’s extracurricular project is presented. Support can include costs of travel, room, board, and registration.   These funds cannot be used to cover the cost of travel related to required class projects or assignments.  Please note that STF prioritizes funding for students that have applied for or been accepted to present extracurricular research at major conferences or venues in their academic discipline.

STF AVAILABLE FUNDING/LIMITATIONS: 

The maximum request amount for STF is $800; group requests are welcome but may not exceed 4 people at $800 per person. Individual students may apply for up to two separate STFs in the same semester, but they may not be for the same opportunity.  Requests are due by the 1st of each month, with award announcement by month’s end.   Summer STFs must be submitted by the end of April.

STUDENT TRAVEL FUND APPLICATION PROCEDURES: 

• Applicants must be in good academic standing in an undergraduate degree program at the time of application.
• Proposal must be approved by the faculty mentor before proposal submission.
• Proposal must be student-authored.  Proposals that appear fully or partially faculty authored will not be considered.
• Students may not use AI to write PURC proposals, either fully or partially, as the writing and editing involved is integral to the learning process.   Proposals fully or partially generated by AI will not be considered for funding.  All submitted proposals will be verified for AI authorship by PURC.
• Travel must be completed within six months of the award date AND prior to graduation.
• Funds must be used for travel only as identified in the approved and submitted grant application. 
• Only two applications per investigator per semester, and one application per project, is allowed. 
• If presenting at a conference, include a copy of the acceptance letter for the presentation/performance/exhibit. If evidence of acceptance is not available by the grant deadline, indicate acceptance pending and include copy of meeting solicitation.  Proposals should be submitted mindful of this schedule.
• Traveling for scholarly and creative research is encouraged.  If traveling for research, submit a research plan, and then report your work upon your return. 
• All funds must be spent within the fiscal year of application. 

STF ASSESSMENT AND AWARDS: 

• Each travel grant request will be evaluated by the PURC office and may be referred to the PURC Council for consultation. 
• Award sizes are based upon availability of funds and previous student support. 
• The PURC office reserves the right to fund proposals at a reduced amount if insufficient funds exist to support all applications of merit. 

STF APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: 

Email the following in PDF format to purc@uncp.edu (Incomplete, non-PDF or paper-only applications will be returned without review):

1. Completed PURC cover sheet (see below) with faculty mentor approval and signature.
2. A completed Student Travel Agreement Form.
3. A typed explanation of the purpose of the travel.
4. A brief description of the project to be presented (the presentation abstract will suffice).
5. A detailed budget justification, including categorized trip costs (e.g. airfare, registration fees, hotel expenses, and amount requested from the Student Travel Grant fund).  Please include all sources of funding.
6. A brief discussion of how the proposed activity will benefit the student, university, department and community (as applicable).
7. A copy of the acceptance letter for the presentation/performance/exhibit.  If evidence of acceptance is not available by the grant deadline, indicate acceptance pending and include copy of meeting solicitation.
8. If traveling for research, submit a research plan, and then report your work upon your return. 

DUE DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: Applications are due by the 1st of each month until available funds are expended.    As funds are awarded on a first come, first serve basis, early applications are highly encouraged. All applications must be submitted at least 2 weeks prior to the date of travel.   All applications must be submitted in PDF format.  Please do not send multiple emails containing different files related to one application; this constitutes an incomplete application and will not be reviewed.

POST AWARD REQUIREMENTS: 

• All funded students are required to present their work at the PURC Symposium in the Spring of each year.   Students that do not complete this requirement become ineligible for future PURC funding.