Top of page
Skip to main content
Main content

Undergraduate Research Grant

 

Thanks to the generosity of our alumni donors, the Department of Political Science (POLS) has a limited annual fund to support qualified undergraduate research. We invite students to apply for this fund on a rolling basis (i.e., there is no specific deadline).

 

How to Apply

Applicants should send a short (1 page or less) description of the proposed sponsored project and the requested funding amount and budget by email to the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) of the Department of Political Science.

 

Eligibility

The Department will consider applications if and only if:

1. The proposed funding will directly support the student's research on a specific sponsored project

  • For example, by paying for the cost of implementing a survey, acquiring a proprietary data set, or defraying the student’s travel expenses to present the associated paper at an academic conference;
  • We are not able to support student travel to academic conferences when the student is not presenting the sponsored research project at the conference.

 

2. The student’s sponsored project is being conducted under the rubric of the Department’s Honors Program, a Political Science course, or another Departmentally institutionalized and supervised means.

  • Funding to support undergraduate research or conference presentations is for students working on projects for a POLS course, for a POLS advisor, or for an Honors thesis supervised by POLS faculty.

 

3. The student’s principal Department of Political Science advisor or instructor has approved the funding request, in an accompanying email to the Department DUS.

  • Only faculty-supervised and faculty-approved projects are eligible.

 

4. The Department’s allocation for undergraduate research support has enough funds remaining to approve the request all or in part:

  • For Honors research, we aim to fund projects with a budget less than $1500 in full until our budget is exhausted. We may consider funding amounts in excess of that, on a deferred basis, if our budget allows;
  • For conference presentations, we aim to provide support for budgets of less than $500.