Q. How can I find funding for my undergraduate research?

What is a grant?

Grants can provide funding for research experiences, data collection, equipment, studies, events, and other ways of engaging in activities that seek to build knowledge and improve communities. These grants may be very small or very large, and they may have a wide range of eligibility and application requirements. However, there are many grants available to undergraduates, or anyone, who has a project they believe is worth pursuing and is able to do the work required to create and submit the grant application.

What is involved in a grant application?

Completing a grant application is usually no small task, but the skills needed to do so are not out of reach and are often worth pursuing. Here are some elements required in many grant applications:

• A Principal Investigator to take charge of the project and be the main contact person for the grant application
• Statement of the problem that the project seeks to solve or investigate
• Literature review of research and projects that have already been completed and can inform your project
• Methodology, if applicable
• Project summary or answers to questions about such topics as who or what benefits from the project, explanation of what success will look like, whether the project will sustain itself beyond the funding period, and what type of assessment strategies will be put in place to assess the project
• Project budget
• Project timeline

Selected Grants and Fellowships for Undergraduates

Although not comprehensive, this list will help students explore funding opportunities. Not all these opportunities will be relevant to all undergraduates, so read through the requirements and eligibility carefully. Some of these links will take you out to other lists, and some are direct links to funders. 

• Amgen Scholars Program

  Provides research opportunities at 24 host institutions for undergraduates from any four-year college or university in a given region.

• CDC Fellowships and Training Opportunities

• Edward Guiliano '78, PhD, Global Fellowship Program

  Provides undergraduate or graduate students with the opportunity to broaden their perspectives by engaging with the world beyond Stony Brook University and their local communities. The undergraduate program is for undergraduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook, and has its own application (separate from the graduate student application).

• Humanity in Action Fellowships

• List of External Undergraduate Research Funding from the University of Connecticut

• NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)

• Psi Chi International Honor Society in Psychology Undergraduate Research Grants

  Individual grants of $1500 or $3500 for research requiring the applicant to travel significant distances.

• Roddenberry Catalyst Grants

  This fund makes grants between $2500-$15000 to anyone, anywhere in the world who has an early-stage idea or project that addresses pressing global challenges.

(From Stony Brook University's An Undergraduate's Guide to Funding and Publishing Research)