Undergraduate Research and Independent Projects

Proposal Guidelines

Proposal Content 

Department Grant proposals should be authored and submitted by faculty mentors or departmental staff coordinating the projects and programs to be funded. Faculty Grant proposals should be authored and submitted by faculty mentors. 

All proposals must explicitly address:

  • Scholarly and experiential goals and/or learning outcomes for participating students.
  • Mentoring strategies, including training and resources available to new mentors as well as guidance and resources for students.
  • Outreach strategies and selection criteria for students participants, including efforts to address issues of representation in the discipline as appropriate.
  • Specific outcomes for past participants (e.g. subsequent publications, honors theses, presentations, etc.) as appropriate. Discuss any available student or mentor feedback, and highlight new processes or initiatives responding to this feedback.
  • A contingency plan for core project activities in the event of disruption (including but not limited to COVID).

Any proposal involving off-campus or international projects must also:

  • Clearly describe field sites and itineraries. Funding may only be disbursed after additional requirements on the part of students, mentors, and departmental staff are completed. VPUE Undergraduate Research funds cannot support, in any manner, travel to or research in locations where Stanford Global Risk has deemed the environment to be unstable or unsafe. Read more about the Undergraduate Research requirements for projects involving Off-campus Travel and International Travel.

Any proposal requesting funds for academic year part time student employment must:

  • Provide evidence that the academic year part time student employment is directly essential to the broader undergraduate research objectives of the department, program, or research center.
  • Describe specific student duties and deliverables that would not be appropriate to compensate with stipends or with independent study units.
  • Name the hiring manager, supervisor, and human resources support for the student(s)

Department Grant proposals must also:

  • Present recruitment strategies and selection criteria for mentors and projects.
  • Describe activities and events that build a cohort or community of undergraduate researchers. Up to $250 in programming expenses per full time student may be requested if needed.
     

Selection Criteria

Grants are competitive, and even strong proposals may receive only partial funding. Successful proposals will provide concise evidence of:

  • A plan to cultivate strong faculty mentorship
  • Intensive student intellectual engagement with faculty mentors' scholarship
  • Student training to develop the skills that enable more independent projects and increased intellectual responsibilities in the future
  • A clear plan to foster student engagement with other undergraduate researchers as well as the department or program’s broader scholarly community
  • **Please note that exemplary proposals may be shared with future applicants.
     

Program Contacts

For questions regarding program goals, proposal content, or review criteria, please contact:

        Brian Thomas
        Senior Director of Undergraduate Research
        bthomas@stanford.edu

For questions regarding grant administration and budgets, please contact:

        Undergraduate Research
        vpue-research@stanford.edu