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.
Student GuidelinesFaculty Guidelines
Awards
SURG grants provide students a taxable stipend according to the following schedule:
- For projects proposed by a single student: $1500.00
- For projects proposed by two students: $1250.00 per student
- For projects proposed by three or more students: $1000.00 per student
The stipend will be paid in regular payments between late June and September. Each proposal application may also request an expense allowance of up to $250 per project (not per student) to cover such expenses for supplies or other costs necessary for the project.
Eligibility
A full-time undergraduate student is eligible to apply for SURG if:
- Their
primary major is in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences;
- Their cumulative G.P.A. of 3.0 or higher at the time of application;
- They are registered for at least 12 credit hours the spring quarter preceding and the autumn quarter following the summer in which the grant was awarded.
See the Student Guidelines document from the link above for complete eligibility requirements.
Application Assistance
Students interested in SURG who may be unsure if their project requires approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) may wish to view an instructional video on the IRB process or view the
Human Subjects Research: The DePaul IRB Process and Protocol Preparation Guide.
Application Timetable
The Summer Undergraduate Research Grant application period begins on Wednesday, March 15th and closes on Monday, April 15th. Late applications will not be accepted.
Application is Closed
Undergraduate Research Fund (URF)
The Undergraduate Research Fund (URF) Program was created to support DePaul undergraduate students by reimbursing the expenses incurred for participation in scholarly meetings to which they have been invited to share their research or creative work.
Applicants are very strongly encouraged to fully review the
Student Guidelines before completing an URF application. All expenses must abide by DePaul and LAS policy and procedure, which now includes the requirement that all students must register international and non-local domestic overnight travel related to one’s activities at DePaul. Compliance differs depending on whether you are traveling to a destination in the US or abroad.
Students planning travel outside the United States must complete
Independent Student Travel Registration and submit evidence of registration within the application.
Please note: This link will take you to a page with Study Abroad branding because most international travel at DePaul is managed by the Study Abroad program; ignore the branding, and complete the registration process with the understanding that you are registering for travel funded by the URF, not Study Abroad.
Students who will travel
domestically must submit the
Travel Release and Waiver, and submit that signed form within the application.
Applications lacking the appropriate evidence of travel registration will not be processed.
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. Instructions and links to registration processes are included in the Guidelines document referenced below. Past URF recipients can be viewed
here.
Student Guidelines
Awards
While students are encouraged to seek other sources of support, the URF is committed to reimbursing the registration, travel and accommodation costs necessary for the student to present at these events. Unless otherwise requested due to financial hardship, reimbursements will be made after travel has occurred.
Eligibility
The URF is available to students whose primary major is in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. For a complete list of LAS majors, see
here. Applicants must also be:
- full-time students in good academic standing with an overall GPA of 3.00 or higher
- the sole or main authors/presenters of the project identified in the conference program or in a letter of acceptance from the conference organizers (proof of acceptance is required as part of the application)
Students may receive more than one award per year, but preference is given to applicants applying for the first time within the academic year. Previous awardees are eligible to reapply in subsequent years.
Application Timetable
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. Applications must be submitted using this
Online System.