糖心Vlog

Office of Undergraduate Research

Submit a URG Proposal

Eligibility Requirements

  • Undergraduate or Texas Academy students enrolled full-time (12 semester credit hours, SCHs, or more) at 糖心Vlog, in both Fall and Spring semesters of the current university year.
  • Students enrolled in 6-11 SCHs may be eligible to apply. For this group of students, a justification from the department chair of the student’s major or the Dean of Reaud Honors College (for Texas Academy students) must be included in the proposal. 
  • A minimum cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 2.8 and a major GPA of 3.0 at 糖心Vlog at the time of the submission.
  • Must have at least one faculty mentor (tenure, tenure-track or full-time instructor). The faculty mentor will provide academic guidance to his/her student and assume the fiscal responsibility of the awarded grant(s). For any questions on identifying a faculty mentor, please contact The Office of Undergraduate Research (O.U.R.) through our@lamar.edu or Cristian Bahrim, the Director of O.U.R., at cbahrim@lamar.edu.
  • All research efforts and support must be compliant with IRB guidance (for research of human subjects), IACUC guidance (for animal research), IBC guidance (for research involving biohazards), if the proposed research falls within these domains.
The review of submitted proposals and awarding of undergraduate grants will be conducted based on the intellectual merits and broader impacts. Intellectual merits refer to the level of potential to advance knowledge and/or develop solutions. Broader impacts refer to the project’s potential to benefit society and its contribution to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes.
Up to twenty-five (25) proposals submitted on or before October 1, can be funded based on thorough review conducted by 3 to 4 faculty members with good understanding of the topic. Typically, for these proposals the minimum acceptance score is 75% as an average of the reviewers’ scores.

Proposal limits

  • Each student may only receive ONE undergraduate research grant (U.R.G.) in a fiscal year. Receiving an undergraduate research grant does not exclude the recipient from receiving a summer undergraduate research fellowship (SURF program).
  • Each faculty mentor can support up to three U.R.G. proposals in a fiscal year.
  • All questions regarding proposal limits should be submitted in writing to the Director of O.U.R at cbahrim@lamar.edu or our@lamar.edu .

Proposal Components

A proposal layout is provided for undergraduate research grant proposal submission. For consideration of funding, the proposal must be submitted electronically in one PDF file with the content listed in the instructions below.

Proposal Coversheet: The information on the coversheet will be utilized to determine the eligibility requirements.

PRINT PROPOSAL COVER SHEET Fill in the information requested and add it as the first page of the proposal package.
Project Description: The narrative portion of the proposal must not exceed 5 pages of letter size paper with 1” margins and 10 pt. Times New Roman font or larger. The narrative portion of the proposal encompasses items 1-7 of the list below. Item 8, letter(s) of recommendation from mentor(s), does not count towards the page limit. Separate page(s) for references, graphs/tables, and/or appendices do not count towards the page limit.
  1. Title (no more than 10 words) and Abstract (of 250 words or less)
  2. Introduction or Problem Statement
  3. Research Objectives/Hypothesis/Thesis/Purpose
  4. Methodology and research design
  5. Expected Output and Outcome (Note: “output” refers to activity, effort, and/or associated work products related to the objectives that will be produced by the end of the project; while “outcome” refers to the result, effect, or consequence that will occur with the project output.)
  6. Proposed Budget (up to $2,300 per project) and budget justification. The allowable expenditure includes the research student’s stipend, research support (an itemized list) and travel related to the project (some relevant details about the event should be provided). View Sample Budget
  7. Relevant literature to the proposed project with references.
  8. Letter of recommendation from mentor(s). If several mentors are for one project, then each mentor should provide a letter of recommendation and should specify his/her role in mentoring the student. The letter should be on one page and should address two aspects: 1) the benefit for the student in running the research project and 2) the student’s ability to successfully complete the project.

SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

Proposal Evaluation Criteria

  • Intellectual merits, clarity in technical language, and originality of the idea (10 points)
  • Methodology, research design, thesis or purpose (10 points)
  • Project output and outcome, including broader impact (10 points)
  • Relevant literature review for the proposed project (10 points)
  • Organization and quality of proposal (10 points)
  • Proposed budget and budget justification (5 points)
  • Letters of recommendation (5 points)

Scoring for each of these criteria will be based upon the Proposal Evaluation Criteria Rubric.

Important!

AI tools should not be used to improve the content, grammar, syntax of the narrative, or to generate references for the paper. Evidence of using AI tools as listed disqualifies the paper from the competition. Any other use of AI tools should be disclosed.

Final Report

The student should submit a 5-to-7-page narrative with technical details (including graphics, graphs, tables) about the project’s findings and outcomes by May 31. The submission should be approved by the faculty mentor(s) with an email reply to the student’s email submission.  The second student stipend scheduled for June is received based on the successful submission of the final report.

Format of the final report: letter size paper with 1” margins and 12 pt. Times New Roman font.

  1. Project title
  2. Student name
  3. Faculty mentor(s)
  4. Project output
  5. Project outcome
  6. Plan for research in the future
  7. Student’s Testimonial

Narrative for the Paper Competition at EXPO

A narrative about your URG research project can be submitted to the EXPO Paper Competition in early April.  Please follow the guidelines.

Expectations from all URG winners

  • Attend the Awards Ceremony at the O.U.R. Fall Conference and the Orientation in November.
  • Contribute to the organization of the Fall Conference (i.e. manning the registration desk, helping to set up/down posters, and other logistic needs.)
  • Present a brief overview of the URG research project in January at the URG Kickoff day.
  • Give a poster or oral presentation at the EXPO in April.
  • Submit a final report by May 31.
  • Be a part of panel discussion for the new URG proposal submissions during the next Fall semester.