Student Research Materials Grant

The Honors Program provides small grants ($300-$500) to support students who are engaged in science thesis research. Funds are limited, so please apply early! 

2022-2023 Application Timeline:

• Application Opens: Wednesday, September 28, 2022
• Application Due: Friday, December 3, 2022 at 5:00 pm.

      Want to apply? See APPLICATION.

      Funds for recipients will be available beginning December 3, 2022 and must be spent by March 31, 2023.

Purpose of this Grant: 

This grant is designed to facilitate undergraduate participation in faculty-assisted primary research, and to help defray any costs associated with these collaborations. As such, funds can be directed toward the following purposes: 

• Specialized laboratory supplies or equipment 
• Technology, including software 
• Expendable supplies and services 
• Conference registration  

Other purposes will be considered, but please note that neither personal laptops/tablets/other computing devices, nor pay for yourself or others, are fundable requests for this grant.

Helpful Tips:
Once you begin the application, it must be completed in one sitting. If you close the application prior to clicking "Submit," the application will be lost, and you must begin again. To ensure that you are prepared to complete the application in one sitting, review the questions below to gather all of the necessary information you will be asked to include in the application.

NOTE:

• In the event the application is not submitted successfully, you will need to resubmit the application. So, be sure to compose your responses to the essay questions ahead of time, save, and copy/paste them into the application.
• You must make your research supervisor aware of your intent to apply for funds prior to submitting the application. The Student Research Materials Grant Committee will be in contact with the Faculty Research Mentor and student concerning any details about the research proposal and this application.
• If you are notified of being awarded the grant, you (the student) or your Research Mentor will have 90 days to provide a list of purchases to both the Honors College (jorge_vielledent@baylor.edu) and your department's purchasing agent. Further, if the grant is used to fund the cost of conference attendance, the conference must occur before 5/31/2023. 

The application consists of the following sections: Please note that any application found to be incomplete will not be considered for funding.  Your research mentor and departmental administrator's contact information are absolutely required.

APPLICANT, FACULTY MENTOR, & RESEARCH INFORMATION

• Non-Technical Abstract: Please include an abstract of no more than one to two paragraphs in length, written in non-technical language appropriate for a lay audience. Acronyms may be used if they are adequately explained. Abstracts of funded proposals will be published on the Honors College website and other marketing materials.
• Contact Information: Contact information (including email address and phone number) for the project Faculty Research Mentor as well as the name of the department administrator in charge of purchasing for your lab are required.  This information is required to ensure seamless distribution of award funds, which will occur via communication with your department administrator.
• Funding: If this proposal has been submitted to other potential funding sources, you will be asked to explain and list project title(s), dates, and the dollar amount(s) of the potential award(s), if applicable.
  • Funding to purchase incentives for participation in human subjects research will not be a approved without a sample size calculation and justification (i.e. literature references) for the specific amount of funding requested.
  • Funding for incentivizing study participation may only be requested in the form of the purchase of items (i.e. gift cards or other raffled prizes). Funding for payments to individual study participants will not be approved.
• Project Period: The funds must be expended by March 31, 2023, although use of the materials may continue past this date. 

PROJECT BRIEF

Be prepared to provide the following:

• Background and rationale for this project (200 words or fewer)
• Specific objectives of this project (100 words or fewer)
• Research methods, procedure, and plan of work (200 words or fewer)
• Bibliographic References: Please include sufficient bibliographic references to demonstrate familiarity with scholarship in the field and to document the integration of prior research into the narrative portion of the proposal, supplying citations where appropriate.

ESTIMATED EXPENDITURES

A detailed budget should be included with this application using the line items below. List each item requested to support the proposed research, the associated cost, and a one-sentence justification for the request.  Please note that pay for yourself or others, as well as personal laptops/tablets/other computing devices, are not fundable requests. If funding for training or conference attendance is requested, include a link to registration and clearly indicate the associated cost.  IMPORTANT:  To receive funding, the application must make very clear that the applicant knows from where the items would be purchased and how much the items cost. 

NOTE ABOUT GIFTCARDS:  The only allowable gift cards are pre-paid Mastercards. Please contact jorge_vielledent@baylor.edu for further information on purchasing pre-paid Mastercards.

(Total Maximum: $500)

• Equipment & Technology
• Expendable Supplies & Services
• Training & Conference Registration
• Other