Academic Year 2023/2024 Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects Awards

Applications for the Winter-Spring/Summer 2024 award cycle can be found on this page by the end of September. Applications will be due by Friday November 10, 2023

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) is pleased to announce 28 undergraduate students are being offered funding for the Spring/Summer-Fall 2023 award cycle. The students will receive an email by the end of the day Monday May 15th on the next steps required to confirm acceptance and eligability for the award. 

UROP is excited to offer funding for the Winter-Spring/Summer 2023 award period to 37 students. Please click here to view the list which includes the student's research or project title as well as their faculty mentor and department. Individual emails, with the next steps, will be sent to each student offered funding by Monday January 23rd.

UROP is excited to offer funding for the Spring/Summer-Fall 2022 award period to 26 students. Please click here to view the list which includes the student's research or project title as well as their faculty mentor and department. Individual emails, with the next steps, will be sent to each student offered funding by Friday May 13th.

UROP is excited to offer funding for the Winter-Spring/Summer 2022 award period to 28 students. Please click here to view the list which includes the student's research or project title as well as their faculty mentor and department. 

UROP is pleased to offer funding for the Spring/Summer-Fall 2021 award period to 34 students. Please click here for the list.

UROP funded 34 students for the Winter-Spring/Summer 2021 funding cycle. Please click here for a list of the students and their research or project titles as well as their faculty mentors.

UROP funded 12 students for the Spring/Summer-Fall funding cycle. Please click here for a list of those students and their Undergraduate Research or Creative Project titles, as well as their faculty mentors.

UROP held a unique Fall 2019 - Winiter 2020 funding cycle and offered funding to 60 students. Please click here for a list of those students and their Undergraduate Research or Creative Project titles, as well as their faculty mentors.

Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects Awards

What are Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects? Research is how the academic community communicates with the world. Taking multiple forms, research includes scholarly and creative activities that can lead to new knowledge, improve our ability to solve problems, result in new theory, or in the creation of new art or an artistic performance.

Research occurs across the academic disciplines. Historians scrutinize archives, anthropologists conduct studies in the field, biologists work in laboratories, artists paint in studios, and filmmakers shoot, view, and assemble footage into films. No matter your course of study, researchers are working to expand the frontiers of knowledge and discover something new. Research is at the heart of great universities, and the knowledge research creates is part of the service to society universities provide.  Research can result in extraordinary outcomes: a new, more effective medical treatment, new knowledge about our past, a musical composition, or a better understanding of some natural phenomenon.

Undergraduate Research is a unique opportunity for students to work with faculty.  Some students will work on part of a faculty member's current research project. Other students may develop an independent project of their own that is guided by a faculty member. Either way, students have opportunities in a variety of disciplines to engage in original hands-on research and creative projects.

What are the benefits of doing Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects?

• Research provides undergraduate students with the opportunity to move past learning from textbooks to go "backstage" to see where and how knowledge is produced.
• Learning more about your intended major/minor or exploring a field you never thought of before.
• Connecting with other undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and researchers who share similar academic and career interests.
• Appling what you learn in the classroom to actual research...learn by doing.
• Studies indicate that undergraduate researchers:
  • Develop enhanced analytical skills, improve their oral and written communication abilities (Lopatto, 2007)
  • Experience an increase in self-confidence (Russell, Hancock & McCollough, 2007)
  • Can help clarify a career focus (Seymour, Hunter, Laursen & Deantoni, 2003)
  • Would recommend the experience to a friend (Mabrouk & Peters, 2000).

How do I find a Faculty Mentor?

• Talk to faculty with whom you have taken a class.
• Attend lectures on campus to familiarize yourself with other faculty members outside your courses.
• Consider your interests and identify all relevant Wayne State University departments, and read their faculty biographies.  Don't limit yourself to the department of your major.
• You may also search UROPConnect

Questions:

E-mail urop@wayne.edu