General Undergraduate Research Award
2010-11 Guidelines
The Office of Undergraduate Research provides competitive grants available to all UNR undergraduates through the General Undergraduate Research Awards (GURA) program. All undergraduate students regardless of the field of study and class standing are eligible to submit a proposal. GURA grant proposals are solicited annually in spring semester and students are allowed up to one year to complete the project.
The Office of Undergraduate Research is pleased to accept proposals from undergraduate students in any discipline to fund student academic research or creative studies under the direction of a faculty mentor. The study must be completed during the 2010-2011 academic year. Up to $1,200 per grant may be requested. The project should be planned in close collaboration with a faculty mentor. Students selected to receive funding are required to complete their project by May 2011.
Research award recipients must prepare a final report and present a poster at either the Nevada Undergraduate Research Symposium (NURS), held at UNR during the spring of even-numbered years (i.e., 2010, 2012, etc), or the Nevada Undergraduate Research Symposium (NURS), held at UNR during the spring of odd-numbered years (i.e., 2011, 2013, etc.). The exact dates of these symposia will be provided to the participants. Both the report and the poster should represent the research completed during the course of the funded project period. Award recipients and their mentors are also required to provide feedback on the program by completing a questionnaire provided by the Office of Undergraduate Research.
The proposal must consist of the following five sections. The first three sections must be written by the student:
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Cover Page: Each proposal must include a completed cover page form.
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PROJECT DESCRIPTION: 2 page limit; single spaced, 12-pt. font, 1” margins; must include the following sections and headings: 1. Abstract (50-100 words), 2. Introduction, 3. Objectives, 4. Plans for research and/or creative work, 5. Timetable, 6. Plans for dissemination of results and 7. Qualifications of the student. The proposal must be written in a way that is understandable to reviewers with diverse background.
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BUDGET: 1 page limit; provide an itemized list of all proposed expenditures.
The total budget must not exceed $1200. Allowable expenses include materials, supplies, travel costs (up to $600), postage, software, copying costs, etc. Non-allowable expenses include salary and hosting. Include a justification for each of the budget items.
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OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT of work completed at UNR, including a list of courses taken during Spring 2010. Scan the transcripts and include in the proposal.
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SUPPORT LETTER(S) from supervising faculty mentor(s) indicates their approval of the proposal and describes their level of involvement in the project. Note that this is not merely a reference letter. It is a letter that describes the mentor’s endorsement of the proposal and the student in addition to commitment to oversee the project. The letter should also indicate if the faculty member(s) have directed any projects funded by GURA in the past 5 years and include the name(s) of the student awardee(s), if any.
Questions regarding proposal format and/or contents should be sent to ugresearch@unr.edu. The complete proposal should be submitted by email in a single pdf file by Monday, March 8, 2010, with the subject line reading “GURA Proposal.” The entire email should not be larger than 5 MB or it will bounce. Proposals that do not conform to the format requirements, are late, or are incomplete will not be accepted for review.