To apply for these awards, students must meet the following requirements:

• Must be an undergraduate enrolled full-time at any campus of the University of Connecticut. Eligibility for funding through Office of Undergraduate Research award programs is restricted to students currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree at UConn. This includes students pursuing Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of General Studies, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Science in Engineering, and Bachelor of Social Work degrees.
  Note: Part-time undergraduate students enrolled at any campus of the University of Connecticut may apply for these awards if they have completed at least 60 academic credits (including at least 12 credits at UConn).
• Must be in good academic standing.
• Must have their faculty advisor on the project submit a recommendation form as part of their online application.
• May receive no more than one OUR Supply Award during any given academic year.

In addition, students’ projects must meet the following requirements:

• The project may not be for a course that is a required element in the curriculum for the student’s undergraduate degree program (e.g., senior project for BFA students, design lab for Engineering students). However, students pursuing optional research projects that go beyond degree requirements, and who may be enrolled in independent study credits related to those projects, may receive funds to support their project supply costs. Honors thesis projects are eligible under this criterion because earning Honors is optional and requires students to go beyond the requirements for a non-Honors bachelor’s degree.
• The project must be advised by a UConn faculty member. Projects advised by faculty in the Department of Psychological Sciences will have lower priority for funding due to the availability of department-specific funding for undergraduate research projects. Students should consult their faculty advisors or PSYC undergraduate advisor for more information about the PCLB Psychological Sciences Research Grants. If students elect to apply for an OUR Supply Award, they will be expected to indicate the outcome of a PCLB grant application in their OUR application and will not receive a determination on their OUR application until early December (for fall applicants). Students with extenuating circumstances are encouraged to contact OUR to discuss their situation.

AWARD CONDITIONS

• OUR Supply Award recipients must present at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research Poster Exhibition in the fall or spring of the academic year in which the award was received.
• Recipients must submit a Research Experience Completion Form to the Office of Undergraduate Research by the deadline specified in their award letter.

The 2024-2025 OUR Supply Award application is now open. The deadline to apply for OUR Supply Award funding for the 2024-2025 academic year is Monday, March 3, 2025 unless funding is exhausted sooner.

Supply awards will not normally be made in support of summer projects, but applications related to summer work will be considered if funding remains after the March 3, 2025 application deadline. Updated information regarding the availability of funds will be posted here.

The OUR Supply Award application is now open. Apply here. The OUR Supply Award Application Outline provides a list of all the questions you will need to answer in the online application.

For guidance on how to use the application management system, please review the Quest Portal User Tips. A complete application consists of the online application, an uploaded Budget Worksheet, and a Supply Award recommendation form to be completed by the faculty advisor of your project.

Please use the Budget Worksheet to generate an itemized budget for your project; you will be asked to upload this in PDF format as part of the online application. You will request that your faculty advisor complete a Supply Award recommendation via the Quest online application system by entering his/her name and email address in the application. Please ensure you use the email address that is associated with them in the UConn phonebook; that ensures the request will be linked with their netID. The system will send your faculty advisor a personalized link to complete the recommendation form.

We encourage you to share your project description and budget with your faculty advisor so s/he can refer to them when completing the recommendation form. Please refer to the FAQ section below for detail about allowable and prohibited expenses.

It is advisable to review the OUR Supply Award Application Outline prior to completing the online application. The outline provides you with all the questions you will need to answer and the information you will need to provide in the online application.

Please note that the final question on the application will ask you to certify that you have prepared your application materials in accordance with University standards for academic integrity. Learn more about academic integrity.

If you have questions about the OUR Supply Award program or the application process, contact the Office of Undergraduate Research at (860) 486-7939, our@uconn.edu, or schedule an appointment with an OUR Advisor via Nexus under “Enrichment Programs.”

Faculty advisors are asked to complete a Supply Award Faculty Recommendation Form. Your assessment of the quality of the student’s work to date and the necessity of this funding for the completion of the proposed project are critically important to the review process. Students will request recommendations via the online application system (quest.uconn.edu). Faculty should follow the link emailed to them in order to complete the recommendation form (message from UConn Quest Portal [noreply@mail.smapply.net], subject line “Request for recommendation”). If the student has initiated the recommendation request, but you cannot locate the email, you can still submit your recommendation via the Quest Portal. Go to the main Quest Portal page, click “Log In” in the top right corner, select “UConn Single Sign-on” and log in with your netID and password; you should then see the recommendation task to complete.

Please note that award funds may be disbursed directly to the student or transferred to a ledger 2 account associated with the faculty supervisor or his/her department for use in accordance with the budget submitted by the student. Note: OUR cannot transfer funding to a ledger 4 account.

OUR Supply Award applications are reviewed by the Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research based on the following criteria:

• The project description is well written and clearly explains the project.
• The student and his/her project meet the eligibility criteria.
• The budget is itemized, appropriate to the project described, and reports the total cost of the project (even if it exceeds the funding requested).
• The student has secured research compliance approval(s) if necessary for the project. No award will be issued until documentation of approval(s) is received.
• The advisor is familiar with the student’s project and rates the student’s work to date highly.
• The student could not accomplish all the goals of the research or creative project without this funding and the advisor recommends funding.

Please note that funding for this program, which is intended to support students across the university, is limited. Multiple students applying for support for the same project or related projects may receive smaller awards. Students who have previously received support from OUR for their projects may receive smaller awards or lower priority for funding.