Funding Your Research

It is important to learn about the differences between volunteering, receiving credit, and paid positions to help decide which is right for you. Funding is highly variable across research groups and projects, and being paid for research might not be possible unless you seek out your own funding.

Our goal is to enable as many students as possible to benefit from an undergraduate research experience at Cornell. Although some students may receive support through individual faculty research grants or may instead opt to gain academic credit for a research project, the Office of Inclusive Excellence’s Engineering Student Grants Program offers an additional source of support.

There are some other grants exclusively available to Cornell Engineering students, as well as funding opportunities outside the college. Cornell also offers several research scholars programs that provide research funding, professional development opportunities, and research communities.

Please be aware that the Office of Inclusive Excellence undergraduate research funds are available only for undergraduate students currently enrolled in Cornell Engineering majors or Biological or Environmental Engineering.

Funding Cycles

Once faculty and student have agreed upon a proposal idea, and a plan for the research term, each must separately complete and submit online applications. The faculty application must be submitted first. The student will use the faculty application ID number to link their submissions. The ID number screen will appear a few seconds after the faculty mentor clicks “Submit” to submit the faculty application. Be sure to write this number down. The student will need it in order to submit the student application.

We recommend preparing your responses in a separate document that you can save, and then copying them into the application system once they are finalized. Students should ask their faculty mentors to review their drafted responses before submitting a final version. This will allow you to receive valuable feedback from your mentor and ensure that both the mentor and student components are well-coordinated.

To encourage high quality applications from students, we require all undergraduate applicants to obtain faculty approval for their proposals before submission. We ask that each faculty mentor review the student’s project proposal and personal statement. The faculty mentor should give his or her application ID number to the student, to enable submission of the student application, only after the mentor has reviewed and approved the student’s proposal and statement. Once approval has been secured, the student must then submit the online student application before the application deadline.

Please be aware that undergraduate research funds are available only for undergraduate students currently enrolled in Cornell Engineering and Biological or Environmental Engineering majors.

Important Note

New word/character count maximums have been imposed on responses to each application question. Please use your word processing software to check the word/character counts on your responses before pasting them into the application response boxes. Responses that are too long will be truncated upon submission, such that any words beyond the limit will not appear for reviewers. Maximums are being enforced in order to keep review times reasonable. Please answer the questions with clear responses that are brief and to-the-point.

If you are a faculty advisor who is considering applying for support for multiple students or your research team, please follow the guidelines below:

• If applying for team funding, the faculty advisor should submit one team application, listing the names of all student applicants on the team. Each team member must submit an individual application. The team application will be considered as a whole, and, if approved, awarded team funding. Individual team members will not be considered separately for individual funding.
• When requesting project support funds only (no student wages), the maximum team size is four students per team.  When student wages are requested, maximum is two students per team.
  • Please note: Team applications are discouraged during the summer term for cases in which full student wages are required for each team member. Due to the high costs of summer support, individual applications typically have a greater chance of success. 
• If applying for individual funding for more than one student, please submit a separate application for each, with a unique project title, reflecting the specific research focus of each student.  A maximum of 2 proposals per faculty member are allowable in any funding term.

Selection Criteria

Cornell Engineering aims to fund as many quality proposals as possible. However, levels of available funding fluctuate along with corporate and alumni donations. The competition for research awards varies from term to term, depending on numbers of applicants and available funding.

Your application will be reviewed and rated by a faculty committee according to the selection criteria below. Award decisions are based on committee ratings of how well your application fulfills the selection criteria. Please read the selection criteria and application instructions thoroughly and prepare your application carefully.

Please be aware that undergraduate research funds are available only for undergraduate students currently enrolled in Cornell Engineering and Biological or Environmental Engineering majors.

Reminder: Because Rawlings Cornell Presidential Research Scholars ↗ are funded through the Cornell Commitment Office, they are ineligible for undergraduate research funding through this program. Student Project Teams are also ineligible for this program as they have the opportunity to be considered for college funding through a separate process each fall.

The Office of Inclusive Excellence staff make the final allocation decisions, based on review committee ratings, available funding and sources, and program philosophy considerations.

Students and faculty mentors are notified of competition outcomes by e-mail. Award funds are transferred to a department account, through which the student receives the agreed-upon hourly wages.

Program Requirements

Research hours, schedules, and wages amounts are to be negotiated and agreed upon together by the student and the faculty mentor.

Student grant recipients are required to submit both a written report on their research, and an online evaluation of their experience, to The Office of Inclusive Excellence at the end of the award period. Students are also required to present their work in an oral or poster presentation either on campus or at an external conference or presentation event.

Students who receive an undergraduate research award typically work on their research projects approximately 10 hours each week during an academic semester or approximately 30 hours a week during the summer term. However, hours may vary depending on the student’s schedule and the needs of the research program.

Program Requirement Dates

Optional Poster Session

The Office of Inclusive Excellence sponsors an Undergraduate Research Poster Session in late April each year. All students funded in our program during that year or the preceding summer are invited to participate in the poster session. Student researchers may also participate in BioExpo, BOOM, CURB Forum, and other organized research poster sessions on- or off-campus.

To meet the presentation requirement associated with the grant, oral or poster presentations should occur at a conference or event with a relatively broad audience, beyond a student’s research group or course seminar. Those who have not presented their work at other events are expected to participate in the poster session in April to fulfill the terms of their award.

Grant Program Funding and Sources

Faculty applicants will be asked to specify their budget requests on the faculty application.

Standard Award Amounts

Notes

• Students may not receive both academic credit and wages for the same research project in a given term.
• Undergraduate research funds are available only for undergraduate students currently enrolled in Cornell Engineering and Biological or Environmental Engineering majors.
• Student wages are considered taxable income. More information about student employment ↗
• Because Rawlings Cornell Presidential Research Scholars ↗ are funded through the Cornell Commitment Office, they are ineligible for undergraduate research funding through this program.
• Student Project Teams are ineligible for funding through this program.
• Students eligible for Federal Work Study (FWS) may apply their FWS award to their undergraduate research position. Please state your FWS eligibility on the student application and work with your faculty mentor to adjust your wages request to reflect the 50% contribution from FWS. For example, if you are requesting to earn $1200 in wages for your undergraduate research effort this term, you would request $600 on the application, since the remaining $600 would be covered by your FWS supplement. (Note for summer applicants: if you are eligible for FWS during the academic year, and you were registered full time in the Spring semester and intend to register full time for the following Fall semester, and you will not be enrolled for six or more summer session credits, then you are eligible to receive a summer FWS award, which will cover 50% of your wages during the summer as well.)

Sources of Funding

The Office of Inclusive Excellences Undergraduate Research Program is supported by Cornell Engineering and by various corporate and alumni sponsors. Although much of our funding is available for undergraduate students pursuing research projects in engineering without additional specifications, some of our sponsors have targeted their gifts to support students from specific demographic groups within the college or projects within specific areas of inquiry. Below we provide brief descriptions of each of our current funding sources. On the application, you will be asked to select any specialized funding sources for which your project meets the eligibility requirements. Applicants must be enrolled as an undergraduate student in Cornell Engineering or a Biological or Environmental Engineering major.