Eligibility for Research Grants

Student Eligibility

Any Stanford undergraduate student in good standing is eligible for student research and creative arts grants.

You may not be on probation, suspension or other provisional registration status. No minimum GPA requirement for student grant applications exists. Yet UAR may review your eligibility while considering incompletes, withdrawals or failing grades on your transcript.

You must be an undergraduate at the time you submit your proposal and when you finish your project. If you are a coterminal graduate student, we consider you an undergraduate as long as you have not yet received your bachelor’s degree.

You may use grant funds while on leave of absence from Stanford if you have a specific project-related reason and receive prior approval from UAR.

You may not receive more than $7500 in a single academic year. This annual limit applies to any combination of UAR grants and research awards from VPUE-funded departments or individual faculty members. It does not apply to funding from the federal work-study program.

You may not accept more than one of the following in a single academic year:

  • Major Grant
  • Chappell Lougee Scholarship
  • Haas summer fellowship
  • Departmental summer research assistantship
  • Other summer internship.

Each of these opportunities represents significant time commitments and are intended to support your full-time efforts.

Sometimes projects entail work off campus. You will not receive funding until you provide UAR with evidence that you are well-prepared for ethical, cultural, methodological and administrative aspects of off-campus research.

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Faculty Mentor Eligibility 

All research supported by a student grant must be conducted under the guidance of a qualifying Stanford faculty mentor. Your project may draw upon the guidance of more than one mentor. However, at least one of your mentors must meet all of the following criteria:

  • A qualifying mentor must hold at Stanford the title of Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Senior Lecturer or Senior Fellow. Mentors without one of these titles only qualify with prior UAR staff approval and only if they meet all other criteria.
  • Your mentor must have their own active research or creative agenda in a discipline closely related to main field of your project.
  • Your mentor must be available to provide consultation, training and advice throughout your project timeline.

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Project Eligibility

Any student grant-funded project must comply with the research policies of Stanford University. These policies are established by the Office of the Dean of Research. The Dean’s Office publishes the Stanford University Research Policy Handbook and maintains web pages with detailed information on all policies. For further information refer to the following:

Student grant-funded projects also must adhere to the following guidelines established by Undergraduate Advising and Research:

  • UAR does not fund student projects retroactively. It only reimburses expenses incurred after the approval of the proposal.
  • UAR does not fund public service, educational opportunities or internships that are otherwise unpaid. UAR does not fund expenses already covered by another funding source. When submitting your proposal, you must disclose all time commitments and funding sources and describe their relationship (if any) to your proposed research.
  • If your project involves human subjects in any form, you must provide the UAR office with an approved Human Subjects Protocol before receiving any funding.
  • At times your project may entail work off campus. You will not receive funding until you provide UAR with evidence that you are well-prepared for ethical, cultural, methodological and administrative aspects of off-campus research. UAR cannot support, in any manner, travel to or work in a country with a current US State Department Travel Warning.
  • UAR may disqualify any proposal in the event of unaddressed safety or ethics concerns.

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Research Grants Links:

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