Undergraduate Research Fellowship - Summer (URFS)

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke Undergraduate Research and Creativity Center provides intensive undergraduate student research opportunity funding through the Undergraduate Research Fellowship – Summer (URFS) grants.  These summer opportunities are offered, as funds allow, to support students working on intensive extracurricular scholarly projects while under the supervision of a faculty member.  URFS may be funded in support of initial or ongoing research.  These intensive, competitive grants can be used to cover the cost of supplies or related expenses for extracurricular, faculty-mentored research/creative endeavors, and all other beneficial research activities as defined by and agreed upon by PURC and faculty mentors.   These funds cannot be used to cover the cost of class projects or assignments. 

PURC supports research across the curriculum and will privilege the awarding of fellowships that create a diverse portfolio of projects. As circumstances allow, the center will designate fellowships in as many areas as possible, including the sciences, humanities and arts and social sciences/business/education.  Fellowships not awarded in a given category may be assigned at will.  We will add additional fellowships in an at-large category as our budget allows.  The director will award any available monies based on ranking and pending available funding.

AVAILABLE FUNDING/LIMITATIONS:

The maximum request amount for a SURF is $2,600.  The labor stipend shall not exceed $1,800 (approximately $15/hour/30 hours/week, 4 weeks) and may be spread across the Maymester and Summer I terms.  Additionally, applicants may request up to $800 for research supplies or related expenses.  Note that SURF applications are due in immediate proximity to the end of the fiscal year; as such, selected applicants must be ready to immediately begin working on and completing the necessary paperwork. 

URFS 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.
  • Proposals must clearly discuss the benefit to the student, department, university and community (as applicable). 
  • Funds must be used for research and scholarship only as identified in the approved and submitted grant application. 
  • Only one application per investigator per semester, and one application per project, is allowed. 
  • All funds must be spent within the fiscal year of application.

URFS ASSESSMENT AND AWARDS: 

  • Each grant request will be evaluated by the PURC Council according to the PURC Rubric (see files below).  All applicants will receive notification by email regarding the status of their applications as soon as possible after the review. Some applications may be awarded at a reduced level. 
  • 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. 
  • All grant applications will be evaluated using the PURC rubric (see below).

URFS 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 page (see below) with faculty mentor approval and signature.  The faculty member must approve the proposal prior to submission.
  2. A statement that describes your proposed research/creative activity, thesis or project. Please limit this portion of the application to 3-4 pages:
  • For beginning research: purpose, hypothesis, significance, your role in a larger project (if applicable) and methodology;
  • For ongoing research: purpose, hypothesis, significance, your role in a larger project (if applicable) methodology, preliminary results;
  • For creative activity: purpose, significance, medium, anticipated venues for presentation/performance

4. A detailed budget justification, to include :

  • detailed project costs, including all items with links
  • amount requested
  • other sources of funding (existing or sought)

5. A brief discussion of how the proposed activity will benefit the student, university, department and community (as applicable).

URFS DEADLINES AND TIMELINES:

  • Submission of Proposals: May 8
  • Award announcements:  May 15
  • Project start date: May 17

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. 
  • A one-page written report summarizing the results of the project must be submitted to the PURC Center Director by end of the award period.