UROP Guidelines
What is UROP?
The University of Minnesota's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program offers financial awards twice yearly to full-time undergraduates for research, scholarly, or creative projects undertaken in partnership with a faculty member.
UROP affords undergraduates the unique educational experience of collaborating with a faculty member on the design and implementation of a project. At the same time, faculty have the opportunity to work closely with students and receive valuable assistance with their own research or professional activity. UROP addes new dimension to the undergraduate experience. It encourages students to conduct research and pursue academic interests outside of their regular courses by employing them to work on special projects. Projects are expected to contribute to the student's academic development.
UROP applications are judged on the quality of the proposed project, the strength of the collaboration with the faculty sponsor, and the educational benefit to the student. Since funding is limited, awards are granted to the strongest proposals.
UROP Awards
Stipend (up to $1,400) as salary for actual time spent working on a project; funds up to approximately 120 hours of research.
Expense allowance (up to $300) for supplies and expenses required by the project.
Students may receive both stipend and expense allowances for a single project. The maximum award is $1,700.
Eligbility: Undergraduate Students in All Colleges
A student is an undergraduate if enrolled in a baccalaureate or pre-baccalaureate degree program. All full-time* undergraduates of the University of Minnesota are eligible to apply provided they are in good academic standing. Those on academic probation are NOT eligible. Adult special students are NOT eligible.
*Full-time student status:
Undergraduates are considered full-time if they meet the minimum course registration requirements specified below. Students applying either for a UROP stipend or an expense allowance must meet these requirements. Since UROP stipends are salary for actual time spent working on a project, students applying for a stipend must be eligible for student employment. Employment through UROP is available under regular University Employment and the College Work Study (CWS) program. Students who qualify for College Work Study are encouraged to apply CWS funds to their UROP stipends.
- Regular University Employment: Undergraduate students must be registered for a minimum of 6 credits per semester during the academic year. Students working on summer projects must either register for a total of 6 credits during the summer, or carry a minimum of 6 credits in the preceding spring and subsequent fall semesters. Students working on Intersession projects cannot graduate prior to the end of the Intersession term. Foreign students must be registered for a minimum of 12 credits per semester for the equivalent time frames discussed above.
- College Work Study (CWS) Program Employment: Undergraduate students must be registered for a minimum of 6 credits per semester for Work Study (both Federal and State) during the academic year and/or a total of 6 credits during the summer.
Students may hold only one UROP award at a time. While past award recipients may reapply, priority will be given to first-time applicants. Past award recipients must have completed a final report and evaluation for all previous projects before they will be considered for another award. Students nearing graduation may apply only if they will complete their UROP projects, and submit a final report and evaluation of the program before graduating from the University.
How to Apply
1. Application Forms Can be Found at: http://www.d.umn.edu/urop
2. Develop an Idea for your Project and Identify your Faculty Sponsor
Ideas for projects come from a variety of sources. They may be suggested by a course you have taken or by the research, scholarly, or creative interests of a faculty member, or you may have an idea of your own that challenges you to further exploration. You may work either within or outside your major field or on an interdisciplinary topic. Your sponsor may be a faculty member in any college or campus of the University. If you are not already acquainted with a faculty member with whom you would like to work, consult directors of undergraduate studies or the UROP coordinator for your college:
Stephen Hedman, Assoc. Vice Chancellor
420 Darland Administration Building
(218) 726-8839
shedman@ub.d.umn.edu
School of Business & Economics
Duane Kaas
Coordinator and Associate Professor
104 School of Business & Economics Building
(218) 726-6118
dkaas@d.umn.edu
College of Education & Human Service Professions
Thomas Peacock, Associate Dean
125 BohH
(218) 726-8445
tpeacock@d.umn.edu
School of Fine Arts
Arden Weaver, Assistant Dean
212 Humanities Building
(218) 726-8780
aweaver@d.umn.edu
College of Liberal Arts
Jerry Pepper, Associate Dean
306 Kirby Plaza
(218) 726-7274
gpepper@d.umn.edu
College of Science & Engineering
Tim Holst, Associate Dean
134 Engineering Building
(218) 726-6387
tholst@ub.d.umn.edu
3. Consult with your Faculty Sponsor
Contact the faculty member you have identified, explain the general idea for your project and discuss working together through UROP. Your discussion should lead to agreement on the nature and scope of your project, your method of inquiry and expected outcome; your budget for stipend and expense allowance; the timetable for completing the project; your access to supplies, equipment, facilities; the frequency of your consultations during the project; and your educational goals. Often faculty are able to supplement the salary and expense allowances of UROP students enabling them to undertake a more extensive project or continue working after their UROP award expires. Check with your faculty sponsor to see if additional funds are available through grants or other sources.
4. Prepare your UROP Application
Your completed application should include:
- Project proposal (the proposal must be written by you, not your faculty sponsor)
- The application form
- The faculty mentor recommendation form
- A current transcript (may be unofficial version)
A) Prepare your Project Proposal
There is NO pre-made form for the Proposal. You should prepare your Proposal according to the instructions below, using a word processing or page layout program, such as Microsoft Word or Powerpoint. If you wish to include tables, diagrams or figures, they must all fit within the three page limit. The page margins must be at least one inch on the top and bottom and both sides. The type must be at least 12 points in size. You should use double line spacing, to have more than 3 lines per vertical inch.
Proposal Content:
• Describe the intellectual merit of your proposed research or creative activity. What is the context for this project? Why is it important? What goals will it accomplish or what questions will it answer? For creative activities, what aesthetic are you addressing? Why is your proposed creative activity unique? For a science or technology proposal, you should describe a hypothesis that your research will test.• Describe the broader impacts of your proposed research. Does this research have practical application or public policy implications? Will it contribute to better understanding of questions important to human knowledge or culture? Is your research particularly relevant to certain groups of people, such as K-12 school children or particular ethnic or cultural groups?
• Describe as specifically as possible what you will do during your UROP research or creative activity. What comes first? What is next? How do subsequent steps depend on earlier steps? Why is your plan relaistic and achievable? What contingency plans do you have if this do not work out as expected?
• Describe the outcome of your research or creative activity. For a science or technology proposal, at what level of confidence will your research test the hypothesis that you have described. What will you and others know after your research that was not known before? What questions will be answered? What questions might arise for further study? How will you disseminate your new knowledge. For creative activity, what will you produce? How will you present the results of your creative activity?
B) Complete your Application Form
Calculating your stipend: UROP supports students for actual time spent working on a project up to approximately 120 hours of work (a maximum of $1,400) calculated at the hourly student employment rate of $11.50/hr - rates subject to change.
The scope of your project should be such that it can be completed within the time funded by UROP. If your faculty sponsor can provide additional support for later phases of your project, clearly indicate which part is supported by UROP and which part by resources from the faculty member.
Projects dealing with the use of human subjects: Projects that deal with the use of human subjects in any way must be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). This includes questionaires, surveys, interviews, observation, and secondary use of data such as medical charts. Please contact the Committee Office, MMC 820, 420 Delaware St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55454 (612-626-5654 or www.research.umn.edu/subjects/) to obtain the necessary forms before you submit your proposal. If possible, a copy of the committee's decision should be included with your UROP application. UROP funds cannot be release until the committee's approval is verified. Projects in sociology, psychology, child psychology, political science, and journalism often require approval.
Other required approval: For all new projects that deal in any way with animals, an Animal Usage Form (available at www.research.umn.edu/subjects/index.html) must be submitted to the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), MMC 820, 420 Delaware St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55454 (612-626-5654). All projects that deal with recombinant DNA, artificial gene transfer, infectious agents, and biologically derived toxins must be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). Information is available at www.ibc.umn.edu. The Department of Environmental Health and Safety must also be contacted for safety training for projects that deal with any of the following: ionizing or nonionizing radioactive sources; highly toxic, flammable, or reactive chemicals; biologically hazardous (viable) agents; and potent human or animal carcinogenic substances (www.dehs.umn.edu or 612-626-6002).
Academic credit: If you will be earning academic credit for your proposed project (e.g. for coursework, independent study, senior thesis), then you are NOT eligible for a UROP stipend. UROP is intended to supplement, not to duplicate, these credit-based educational opportunities. UROP projects, however, frequently grow out of work begun in a course, or explore in a preliminary way a topic that is later expanded into a senior thesis.
If you are undertaking a project for credit that is consistent with the goals of UROP but which lacks the necessary funds for supplies and expenses, you may request an expense allowance through UROP by providing the usual rationale. In this case, UROP affords supplementary funding for a credit project by providing resources that are essential but otherwise unavailable.
Itemizing your expenses: You may request funds up to a maximum of $300 for supplies, travel and expenses directly relating to your project. List each item and its cost, explaining its importance to your project. Non-itemized expenses will not be funded.
- Computer costs: UROP will not support the costs of mainframe computer use; funds for this purpose are generally available through the instructional time-sharing account in a faculty member's department. UROP does not support the purchase of computer hardware. Computer disks will be covered only if they are central to the project (for example, a project that includes significant programming).
- Travel expenses: Travel costs should be computed at 50.5 cents per mile (rate subject to change). Expenses for local travel usually are not covered, though travel outside your immediate area to a research site or to a professional meeting to give a presentation on your project frequently are funded. UROP covers mileage and lodging, but not food.
- Other: UROP students may not use their expense allowance to hire other persons to assist them. For example, students may not hire typists, transcribers or word processors. UROP does not support the purchase of standard office supplies (e.g., file folders, paper, computer paper, pencils, ink) or books available in a library. Costs of photocopying must be fully itemized and may not exceed $50. UROP does not support the purchase of standard equipment (e.g., tape recorders, transcribers). If such equipment is unavailable, UROP may support reasonable lease fees. While UROP will support expense items such as telephone calls, postage, and literature searches (these items must be fully itemized and their relationship to your project must be clear), students requesting more than the following typical amounts should explain the necessity of the additional funds: postage: $50; phone: $50.
If the nature of your project is such that exception to any UROP policy is required, contact your UROP Coordinator to discuss the feasibility of this excemption prior to submitting your proposal.
5) Submit your completed application.
If yours is a cross-collegiate proposal and you are working with a faculty member outside your own college, submit your application to the coordinator in that faculty members college (see the list of coordinators above). If you are submitting your materials on-line, please be sure to also submit a hard copy of your materials to that college UROP Coordinator.
Applications are reviewed by the Coordinators and/or faculty committees within each college. Recommendations then are forwarded to the UROP Office in the Twin Cities for final review and processing.
If you receive a UROP award, your notification letter will explain UROP hiring procedures (for stipends) and the transfer of funds from UROP to your faculty sponsor's department for payment to you. All charges against your UROP account for payroll, supplies and expenses will be handled by that academic department. Students may not be paid for time worked or be reimbursed for expenses accrued prior to the specified date on the approved application.
PLEASE NOTE: While working on a UROP project, students must maintain eligibility for Student Employment which includes current registration at the University. Projects must be completed prior to graduation (Student Employment will not allow you to be paid as an undergraduate researcher once you have graduated).
Upon completion of the project, UROP students must file final reports on their projects and complete an evaluation of the program. Faculty sponsors will also be requested to complete an evaluation. Any significant change in your project must be approved by the UROP Office.
We encourage UROP participants to apply during fall semester (deadlines are usually in early November) to present their research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) that takes place each spring. The University of Minnesota provides full funding for a group of students and faculty sponsors to attend this conference. Funding for students is contingent on acceptance for presentation by the conference. For more information on this exciting opportunity, contact the UROP Office or your college coordinator.