Summer Undergraduate Research Grant (SURG)
SURG is a program sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (LAS) to encourage mentored student research. The SURG program awards financial support—to any undergraduate student whose primary major is in LAS—in support of research, scholarly, or creative projects to be completed over the summer. While all student proposals require a faculty sponsor, this award is for student-centered projects. It is thus fundamentally different from the Undergraduate Research Assistant Program (URAP), a program which supports faculty research in the college.
The program offers students the opportunities to design a project and develop a proposal for competitive review. Applications are judged on the quality of the proposed project and the educational benefit to the student. The process is competitive. Since funding is limited, awards are granted to the strongest proposals.
Complete information for student applicants and faculty sponsors is available at the links immediately below.
The application to the 2026 SURG program is closed. SURG will reopen for Summer 2027 applications in Winter Quarter of 2027. At that time, students may submit an application here.
SURG Past Recipients
Undergraduate Research Fund (URF)
The Undergraduate Research Fund (URF) Program was created to support undergraduate students majoring in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences by reimbursing the expenses incurred for participation in scholarly meetings to which they have been invited to share their original research or creative work. The URF does not fund student travel to conferences in support of attendance alone or networking.
Applicants are very strongly encouraged to fully review the Student Guidelines, available below, before completing an URF application.
Because the URF does not fund local travel, the policy requires that any applicant to the URF for any purpose must first complete travel registration for any international destination or any domestic destination outside Chicagoland. Instructions and links to registration processes are included in the Guidelines document referenced below. Past URF recipients can be viewed here.
Applications are reviewed and decisions made on a rolling basis throughout the academic year until funds are depleted. Applications may be submitted online as soon as a student has received confirmation of their travel registration. In that application, students will be required to provide the name of a faculty member who has agreed to endorse their application. Without exception, applications must be received no later than 30 days prior to departure.