Student-Faculty Research Collaboration Grants

Three Student-Faculty Research and Creative Activity Grants

Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (SREU): Earn up to $2,300 and receive up to $600 in supplies to carry out your project during the summer. If multiple students work together on a project, maximum funding is $6,900 in student wages and $600 in supply/travel funds (with the option to receive up to an additional $1,000). The faculty/academic staff mentor also receives a $2,300 stipend. The SREU funding period is from July 1 through September 1. Funding for work in June may be available on request. SREU work should wrap up by September 15. Any unspent funds should be returned to ORSP, so they can be reallocated to support other projects. 

Students must be enrolled for 6 credits or more in the Fall semester following the grant award. If you are working on multiple projects with different mentors, you may earn a maximum of $3,500 from ORSP in the summer. Faculty/academic staff with .5 FTE or greater appointment are eligible to serve as project mentors.

If your project has an educational practice focus, talk to your mentor applying for the  Summer Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant.

Application Deadline: February 10*

Academic-Year Student-Faculty Research Collaboration (SFRC): Earn up to $2,000 and receive up to $600 in supplies to carry out your project during the academic year. If multiple students work together on a project, maximum funding is $6,000 in student wages and $600 in supply/travel funds (with the option to receive up to an additional $1,000). The academic-year SFRC funding period is from September 1 through May 15. SFRC work should wrap up by end of exam week. Any unspent funds should be returned to ORSP, so they can be reallocated to support other projects.

Students must be enrolled for 6 credits or more during the grant period to be eligible for this grant. Biomedical Innovator Scholars are not eligible to receive this grant for funding during the academic year (including winterim and other breaks). If you are working on multiple projects with different mentors, you may earn a maximum of $3,000 from ORSP during the academic year. Faculty/academic staff with .5 FTE or greater appointment are eligible to serve as project mentors.

Application Deadline: July 15 (1^st round) and September 15 (2^nd round)*

Open Access Deadline Program: The Open Access Deadline Program for Student-Faculty Research Collaboration offers an opportunity for eligible students (see below) to apply anytime for summer or academic-year funding to support student-faculty research/creative activity (see funding amounts and dates under the grants above).

Eligible students qualify as one (or more) of the following: low income (defined as Pell Grant eligible); first-generation; post-traditional, including veterans; no incoming credits; registered with Services for Students with Disabilities. Please email orsp@uwec.edu to see if you qualify for this program.

Eligible students must be enrolled for 6 credits or more during the grant period. Biomedical Innovator Scholars are not eligible to receive this grant for funding during the academic year (including winterim and other breaks). Students are unlikely to receive more than two awards under this program during their academic career. Faculty/academic staff with .5 FTE or greater appointment are eligible to serve as project mentors.

Application Deadline: Open

*If the application deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, the due date will be extended to the next workday.

Characteristics of Ideal Projects

The ideal project actively engages students in as many aspects of the scholarly process as possible. This will look different for each project, but might include:

• Identifying a question, problem, or creative/scholarly goal
• Developing a process or approach to answer, solve or achieve it
• Carrying out the project
• Widespread dissemination of the results of the project

The project should be tailored appropriately by the mentor to match the skill level of the student. The level of independent work performed by a first-year student will typically be different from that of a senior student in their second year working on a project.

Projects under this program should lead to sharing the results at scholarly conferences/meetings, in published journal articles or book chapters, and in proposals for extramural funding.

As a condition of the grant, students are expected to present their results at the annual UW-Eau Claire Celebration of Excellence in Research and Creative Activity (CERCA), the Provost’s Honors Symposium, or the Universities of Wisconsin Symposium for Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity. Students are also encouraged to present their research at professional conferences/meetings in their disciplines or at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). Travel funds to present at scholarly conferences/meetings are available through the Student Travel for Presentation of Research Results program.

Eligibility for Mentors

Faculty and academic staff with .5 FTE or greater appointments during the academic year of the grant or in the following academic year for summer funding.

Note: Out of workload considerations for our volunteer student-faculty research review committees and a desire to maximize the opportunity for research mentors and their students to receive research funding, ORSP is limiting each research mentor submitting SREU and SFRC proposals for review to no more than $16,500 total per fiscal year (July 1-June 30). SREU and SFRC proposals submitted for review beyond this amount for a mentor will not be reviewed.

Eligibility for Graduate Students

Graduate students may be involved in a student-faculty research and creative activity collaborative  project, if they are enrolled at least part time and serve as mentor to undergraduate students on the project.

Supply/Travel Funding Requests

Examples of what ORSP supply/travel funds may be used for:

• Research supplies/equipment to carry out the research project
• Books or other reference materials
• Mileage to research/field sites
• Subscription fees for access to survey instruments (those that require a fee for use)
• Software for data collection or analysis (see KB Purchasing: Software)
• Copying expenses for research materials, e.g., surveys

Examples of what ORSP supply/travel funds cannot be used for:

• Conference travel (For conference funding apply for Student Travel for the Presentation of Research Results grant)
• Food for meetings, group meals, receptions
• Participant incentives
• Printing of research posters; these are covered by Blugold Commitment Funding and Printing Services (see KB Services: Printing Poster for Research and CERCA)
• Honoraria or consultant fees to employees of the Universities of Wisconsin

Application Process/Writing Guide

Faculty mentors are encouraged to mentor students in proposal writing. Part of the mentoring process is to carefully review student-written proposals prior to submission.

For students, the Center for Writing Excellence can help at any stage of the writing process, from brainstorming and outlining to organizing arguments and polishing claims.

Go to the eform application to see the required application components.

Proposal Evaluation

Proposals are evaluated using a common set of review criteria by disciplinary review committees, who are also asked to provide feedback to share with applicants. The review committee recommendations and ratings/rankings are reviewed by ORSP; funding decision are made by ORSP. If funding is limited and/or proposals are in the same recommendation category, preference may be given to:

• Tenure-track faculty, especially in the first three years
• Projects that bring in new students
• Interdisciplinary projects
• Projects from underrepresented disciplines
• Projects that involve students in proposal-writing
• The first project from a faculty member over the second or third from a faculty member in any proposal round
• Projects that are developing promising groundwork for an extramural funding proposal