The Characteristics of Excellence

The mission of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) is to support and promote high-quality mentored undergraduate student-faculty collaborative research and scholarship. CUR defines undergraduate research as a mentored investigation or creative inquiry conducted by undergraduates that seeks to make a scholarly or artistic contribution to knowledge. Undergraduate research, a term that encompasses scholarship and creative activity, is recognized as a high-impact educational practice that has the ability to capture student interest, create enthusiasm for and engagement in an area of study, and prepare students for the work world.

CUR, as the leading voice in undergraduate research, has more than 45 years of experience working with faculty and institutions to build and sustain undergraduate research and with evaluating undergraduate research programs. This document represents a compilation of the experience of CUR in building and evaluating undergraduate research programs at all types of institutions, including public and private, primarily undergraduate through research-intensive. This document is intended as a guide for those who oversee undergraduate research and those who wish to build, evaluate, and maintain robust, productive, meaningful, and sustainable undergraduate research programs. Institutions, programs, academic departments, faculty, and administrators should find this document valuable as they work to develop and enhance their undergraduate research enterprise.

The Characteristics of Excellence in Undergraduate Research (COEUR) is a summary of best practices that support and sustain highly effective undergraduate research environments. This document is organized into sections that correspond to various functions or units of a typical college or university campus. Whenever the term undergraduate research, scholarship or creative inquiry is used throughout this document, we are being inclusive of all disciplines. In CUR’s experience, successful programs exhibit many of the characteristics enumerated in this document. Further, many of the characteristics described in this document overlap and are important elements in an integrated, synergistic approach to enhancing undergraduate research.

The authors would like to recognize the contributions of the CUR Councilors in 2011 for their input that helped to craft the first edition published in 2012. We also acknowledge the original authors for their work and campus leaders who have used the Characteristics of Excellence in Undergraduate Research to promote an environment of excellence for undergraduate research.

Bangera, Gita, and Sara E. Brownell. 2014. “Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences Can Make Scientific Research More Inclusive.” CBE–Life Sciences Education 13(4), 602–606. doi: 10.1187/cbe.14-06-0099

Battaglia, Samantha Jude, Lourdes E. Echegoyen, and Laura A. Diaz-Martinez. 2022. “Institution-Wide Analysis of Academic Outcomes Associated with Participation in UGR: Comparison of Different Research Modalities at a Hispanic-Serving Institution.” Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research 5(3): 8–24. doi: 10.18833/spur/5/3/9

Karukstis, Kerry K., and Timothy E. Elgren (Eds.). 2007. Developing and Sustaining a Research-Supportive Curriculum: A Compendium of Successful Practices. Washington, DC: Council on Undergraduate Research. Available for purchase in the CUR Bookstore.

Longmire-Avital, Buffie. 2018. “Seven Potential Barriers to Engaging in Undergraduate Research for HURMS.” Elon University, Center for Engaged Learning (blog), September 18, 2018. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/seven-potential-barriers-to-engaging-in-undergraduate-research-for-hurms

Longmire-Avital, Buffie. 2019. “What’s Their Capital? Applying a Community Cultural Wealth Model to UR.” Elon University, Center for Engaged Learning (blog), March 4, 2019. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/whats-their-capital-applying-a-community-cultural-wealth-model-to-ur

Longmire-Avital, Buffie. 2020a. “Critical Mentoring Is Custom Fitted to the Student.” Elon University, Center for Engaged Learning (blog), April 2, 2020. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/Critical-Mentoring-is-Custom-Fitted-to-the-Student

Longmire-Avital, Buffie. 2020b. “Critical Mentoring in HIPs: A Reparative Framework.” Elon University, Center for Engaged Learning (blog), July 2, 2020. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/Critical-Mentoring-in-HIPs-A-Reparative-Framework

Lopatto, David. 2009. Science in Solution: The Impact of Undergraduate Research on Student Learning. Tucson, AZ: Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Available for purchase in the CUR Bookstore.

Manak, Jennifer, and Jenny O. Shanahan. 2015. “Learning to SOAR: Partnering with Underrepresented Students in Research.” Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education 16. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/tlthe/vol1/iss16

Mekolichick, Jeanne. 2021. “Mapping the Impacts of Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Inquiry Experiences to the NACE Career-Readiness Competencies.” NACE Journal, November 15, 2021. National Association of Colleges and Employers. https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/mapping-the-impacts-of-undergraduate-research-scholarship-and-creative-inquiry-experiences-to-the-nace-career-readiness-competencies/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_content=post-with-img&utm_campaign=content

Mekolichick, Jeanne, and Michael King Gibbs. 2012. “Understanding College Generational Status in the Undergraduate Research Mentored Relationship.” CUR Quarterly 33(2): 40–46. https://www.cur.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Q33.2-Mekolichick-and-Gibbs-40-46.pdf

Mieg, Harald A., Elizabeth Ambos, Angela Brew, Dominique Galli, and Judith Lehmann (Eds.). 2022. The Cambridge Handbook of Undergraduate Research. Cambridge Handbooks in Education. New York: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108869508

Pierszalowski, Sophie, and Thaddaeus Buser. 2021. Mentoring the Next Generation: Using Undergraduate Research to Broaden Engagement and Impact in STEM. Center for Advancing Research Impacts in Society. https://broaderimpacts.netlify.app/undergraduate-research/index.html#

Pierszalowski, Sophie, Francesca Smith, and Daniel López-Cevallos. 2020. “Research Experiences for All Undergraduate Students? Building a More Equitable and Inclusive Office of Undergraduate Research at a Land-Grant Institution.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 52(6), 38–47. doi: 10.1080/00091383.2020.1839337

Shanahan, Jenny Olin, Elizabeth Ackley-Holbrook, Eric Hall, Kearsley Stewart, and Helen Walkington. 2015. “Ten Salient Practices of Undergraduate Research Mentors: A Review of the Literature.” Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning 23: 359–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2015.1126162

Wenzel, Thomas J. 2001. “What Is An Appropriate Teaching Load for a Research-Active Faculty Member at a Predominantly Undergraduate Institution?” CUR Quarterly 21(3): 104–107. https://www.cur.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Q21.3-Wenzel-104-107.pdf

Yosso, Tara J. 2005. “Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth.” Race Ethnicity and Education 8: 69–91. doi: 10.1080/1361332052000341006

Creating a campus culture that values and rewards undergraduate research is essential for sustaining a robust undergraduate research program. CUR believes that such a culture emerges when institutions have a scholarly faculty and leaders committed to providing high-quality undergraduate research experiences for students; broad disciplinary participation in undergraduate research; opportunities that are equitable, accessible to a wide cross-section of students; a strong emphasis on ethical conduct in research; and connected to career readiness competencies.

Institutional commitment to undergraduate research as a high-priority activity for its faculty and students is essential for creating a successful undergraduate research ecosystem. College administrators must clearly articulate how undergraduate research aligns with the mission and/or strategic plan of the institution. Providing appropriate resources and recognition to faculty and students engaged in research will increase the success and sustainability of undergraduate research initiatives. Involvement of other campus constituents, such as

• student-affairs personnel (e.g., in providing on-campus housing for summer undergraduate researchers),
• facilities/physical plant staff (e.g., in creating appropriate spaces for research),
• the office of human resources (e.g., in working with student payroll),
• the office of advancement/development (e.g., in fundraising for undergraduate research),
• the office of scholarships and fellowships (e.g., in promoting opportunities that involve undergraduate research),
  career services (e.g., supporting faculty and students in telling the undergraduate research story),
• the office of research and sponsored projects (e.g., in ensuring faculty are aware of and apply for grants that support undergraduate researchers),
• diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence office, when allowed by state law (e.g., in ensuring first-generation students and/or students from historically underrepresented and excluded minority groups are aware of opportunities and that faculty constructing undergraduate research experiences have training regarding the establishment of inclusive and equitable mentoring practices),
• Institutional Review Boards that engage with students (e.g., in training and supporting them with the process of designing ethical research methodologies),

are also necessary in creating a campus climate that effectively promotes undergraduate research. Specific ways in which institutions can demonstrate their commitment to creating a culture that values and encourages undergraduate research are described in subsequent sections of this document.

A key component to a successful undergraduate research environment is an institutional commitment to a scholarly faculty. For students to derive the most out of an undergraduate research experience, it is important for faculty to be current and active scholars in their fields. Institutions that adopt a teacher-scholar model, in which faculty are expected to regularly produce scholarship that is recognized by their peers and in which a premium is placed on teaching, have in place one critical element of effective undergraduate research mentorship and productivity.

A scholarly faculty is necessary but not sufficient to establish and sustain an outstanding undergraduate research environment. Faculty members also must be committed to undergraduate research as an important part of their roles and responsibilities. Not all faculty scholarship will involve undergraduates, but it is essential that faculty members value both the contribution of undergraduates to scholarship and the participation of undergraduates in scholarly activities as an important part of their education. Further, faculty should be encouraged and supported to develop skills that reduce implicit bias and/or assumptions around students as partners in the research process and the interpretation of research readiness or predicted proficiency. Such faculty should seek to create opportunities for undergraduates to be involved in research, both outside and, when appropriate and relevant to the institution, inside the classroom through course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs).

Institutions with highly successful undergraduate research environments have faculty and student involvement across diverse disciplines so that students have research options in as broad a range of inquiry as possible. Students majoring in all academic areas, including professional disciplines, should have opportunities to participate in faculty-mentored research, scholarship, and creative activities. Institutions that support and encourage interdisciplinary teams are engaging in a best-practice approach to recruit and sustain the involvement of first-generation, historically underrepresented and excluded students from minority communities.

The intellectual experience of pursuing research is beneficial to all students. As such, engagement in undergraduate research should not be limited solely to seniors or to honors-level students. Research suggests that students who engage in undergraduate research in their sophomore year or at least by their junior year are more likely to connect and pursue further education or opportunities within their major area of study. Therefore, undergraduate research opportunities should be accessible to as broad a range of students as is practical, including first-year, transfer, online learners, embedded in the curriculum, as an option for work study for high financial need students, and via community-based participatory research. Undergraduate research participation has been linked with greater retention and graduate school enrollment for first-generation and minority students, particularly in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) fields. However, pathways to undergraduate research engagement that are not intentionally created with inclusive and equitable frameworks may reinforce barriers for some students who may benefit the most from this high-impact practice.

Specific barriers may include assumptions around the level of awareness of research opportunities and pathways to engage; whether the benefits of participating in research are adequately shared broadly with students; and perceptions of faculty mentor accessibility; financial and personal needs; and biases regarding the assessment of research readiness that aligns with majority cultural norms (Bangera and Brownell, 2014; Longmire-Avital, 2018). A robust undergraduate program actively engages undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds and majors. Undergraduate research is a vehicle for developing disciplinary identity and belonging, a critical aspect of prolonged engagement in academic and applied fields.

The undergraduate research enterprise on a campus should be integrated and coordinated, where possible, with other high-impact practices to maximize student development, leverage resources, and incorporate undergraduate research across the institution. While some collaborations will be more obvious (e.g., honors programs; building research awareness in a first-year orientation class; working with service or community-based learning initiatives to develop community-based research projects; helping student researchers apply for national fellowships), other less obvious partnerships can provide another layer of excellence for students. These include study abroad (international research experiences); leadership programs (enhancing leadership and peer-mentoring skills); career centers (leveraging research experiences into employment and new career directions); residential life (residence halls with research-themed learning communities); centers for entering student experiences, and centers for community engagement (community-based participatory research), as well as opportunities to use research as a tool for social action and change. Additionally, leaders of broad learning and education initiatives (e.g., general education, global citizenship, communication proficiency, diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence divisions) should look to undergraduate research programs to further their goals, and leaders of undergraduate research should look to such initiatives for approaches to maximize student learning, such as first-year research methods courses and CUREs, and including undergraduate research into capstone courses.

Institutions that aspire in creating and sustaining an excellent undergraduate research environment will have thoughtful and clearly articulated benchmarks and strategic plans. Strategic plans should address inclusive and equitable recruitment efforts, goals for student and faculty participation in research (relating to quality, quantity, breadth of disciplines, and inclusion of a diversity of participants), mechanisms for identifying and scaling up effective programs, an audit of current or potential barriers preventing equitable access, and resources to test and implement new programs to provide appropriate opportunities for different levels of students, in or outside of the curriculum. Strategic plans should also recognize the resources needed for diversifying, expanding, and enhancing programs, including faculty contributions, staffing needs, space, and fiscal resources.

Recruitment

A marker of a robust undergraduate research program is the sustained, if not growing, number of engaged students and faculty. Aspirational undergraduate research programs prioritize recruitment and retention of their students and faculty. Recruitment plans are a critical opportunity to build and strengthen diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts by intentionally accessible designs. Undergraduate research programs should not rely on faculty to invite interested students. This often-used recruitment strategy cannot be disentangled from possible implicit bias, potentially inaccurate assumptions of student readiness or fit with ongoing research projects, and interest. It links student participation to certain classes, which may overlook or uphold underrepresentation from the participation of students and faculty in a variety of disciplines across the institution as well as sociodemographic groups. Instead, consider undergraduate research fairs or open houses to inclusively introduce students to research at the institution and opportunities to engage. Develop and use partnerships across the institution to create pathways for engaging in undergraduate research. Excellent undergraduate research programs invest in a web presence that clearly outlines the steps for getting involved in undergraduate research. Programs should consider how their websites can be linked with other highly trafficked websites used by the students at the institution. For example, websites listing activities and opportunities through student affairs, first-generation centers (Manak and Shanahan, 2015), or other various diversity, inclusion, and equity offices might be ideal spaces to hyperlink to the undergraduate research program. Developing short presentations for in-person delivery or video access could be shared with multiple areas across the institutions. This content should be developed for both student and staff audiences. Departments can also use their own websites and communication materials to showcase student engagement as well as steps to engage in undergraduate research. Additional suggestions can be found in Pierszalowski and Buser’s (2021), Mentoring Guidebook. An equitable and feasible recruitment plan is one of the essential first steps in building a dynamic undergraduate research program of exceptional quality and impact.

While faculty members are critical in the implementation of undergraduate research, administrative support, and commitment are essential to sustain the undergraduate research enterprise. Support can be construed in terms of funding, supplies, and equipment, but also in time, personnel, recognition and reward models, and administrative flexibility and creativity.

To build and sustain successful undergraduate research ecosystems, expectations for faculty-student scholarship must be accompanied by appropriate resources. Successful institutions recognize that undergraduate research is associated with real costs for materials, infrastructure and personnel, and they use that understanding in allocating funds and other necessary resources to academic departments, programs, and perhaps individuals. Different disciplines will have varying needs for internal budgetary support for undergraduate research; however, administrators should recognize that undergraduate research requires financial, facilities, and human resources for all disciplines. In addition, institutions should recognize the need to provide matching funding for research grants from external sources, when appropriate, and to provide for long-term operational and maintenance costs for acquired research equipment and/or infrastructure.

Faculty startup funding to support scholarship should be commensurate with institutional expectations for scholarship and undergraduate student participation in faculty research. New faculty should be awarded startup research funding to establish the necessary infrastructure and purchase research materials to enable them to begin effective and productive research. Startup funding packages might provide items such as specialized research equipment or research materials (e.g., journals, books, databases, software), funds to travel to research sites or archives, and faculty and/or student research stipends. Appropriate time for faculty to develop their research space should also be provided. In disciplines in which external funding is available, startup funding should be sufficient to help faculty develop a scholarly track record that will allow them to be competitive for external research funding.

If undergraduate research is an institutional priority that fulfills a critical role in student education and scholarship, then the time for faculty to engage in research and mentor undergraduate students must be protected and rewarded. At institutions where most faculty members have heavy teaching loads, faculty should be appropriately compensated, through teaching load credit or reassigned time, for supervising undergraduate research. More research-intensive, doctoral-granting institutions also should recognize the importance and time-consuming nature of faculty work with undergraduates. There are various models of how to compensate faculty with course-load credit, including having undergraduate research count as part of the faculty member’s credit-hour load (as much or more than 10 percent of one’s teaching load credit at predominantly undergraduate institutions); rotating load credit among faculty within departments; offering additional support (in the form of teaching assistants, higher load credit, extra funds for materials and supplies, or smaller class sizes) for courses that contain a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE), or offering small-enrollment courses in which faculty receive credit for teaching their research team.

Models should also consider compensation structures for research teams. Multiple undergraduate mentors working with a group of students is a successful model for engaging first-generation, historically underrepresented/excluded students. However, it moves away from the traditional model of having a one-to-many faculty-student ratio. This type of research team or lab is effective, but models for compensation must be able to equitably accommodate this structure for compensation.

High-quality undergraduate research experiences involve impactful and custom-fitted meaningful mentoring relationships (Longmire-Avital, 2020a). These relationships have the potential to be long-lasting and require ongoing personal investment that may not be easily documented. Efforts are necessary to provide professional development for all while concurrently acknowledging that undergraduate research mentoring may result in invisible work, particularly for faculty that belong to a historically underrepresented and excluded minority identity group, is critical.

In addition to receiving workload compensation for supervising undergraduate research, providing appropriate reassigned time for faculty to engage in research-related tasks is likewise important. Faculty, especially those with relatively heavy teaching loads at primarily undergraduate institutions, may face difficulty in finding sufficient time to write research grant proposals, complete scholarly articles or books, or coordinate and administer such research activities as serving on research-related committees (Institutional Review Board, facilities, library acquisitions, etc.), supervising personnel, or administering multi-faculty research projects. These are essential activities for maintaining active and robust research programs, however, and many institutions support these activities through reassigned time for faculty.

Undergraduate research program office

Most highly successful undergraduate programs are associated with a central office of undergraduate research, which oversees campus-wide undergraduate research activities that include but are not limited to on-campus research symposia, summer research, student workshops, mentorship training, and disbursement of funds for student travel. A centralized office of undergraduate research is well positioned to promote equitable access to opportunities (Pierszalowski 2021). Some undergraduate research offices may award internally or externally funded research assistantships to students and/or faculty. The establishment of a designated position for an undergraduate research program director provides a clear statement of the importance and expected potential of the undergraduate research enterprise on a campus. The program director’s position (and associated costs) should be funded through the institutional budget, rather than depending on soft money, even though new initiatives funded through external grant dollars are often the catalyst for creating a position that evolves into a permanent post on campus. Where the program director is placed in an institution’s organizational structure is critical, but this will likely vary by institutional type and idiosyncrasies of each campus environment. The director of undergraduate research should have appropriate professional credentials, such as a faculty member with experience in mentoring undergraduate research or a staff member with a master’s degree in an academic discipline or in student affairs and prior entry-level experience. Additionally, support for continued professional development for the director is critical to establishing and sustaining a level of excellence for the undergraduate research environment.

Some institutions do not have the demand or resources for full-time professional staffing for an office of undergraduate research or for a director of undergraduate research; some may instead have an appointed coordinator of undergraduate research (often a faculty member committed to and knowledgeable about undergraduate research issues with reassigned time devoted to this role). Having a central advocate for undergraduate research on campus is important for publicity, coordinating campus undergraduate research events, maintaining awareness of internal and external opportunities for enhancing undergraduate research, building institutional collaborations and relationships (e.g., career services, access and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) centers) and conducting assessments. Awareness of external opportunities should consider cross-institutional partnerships with minority serving institutions and community colleges. These partnerships should be mutually beneficial.

Some offices/coordinators of undergraduate research work with a campus advisory board, which often includes student members. These boards are an important element for building advocacy and for providing direction and guidance. Given, the key role these advisory boards play in the sustainment of high-quality undergraduate research experiences and infrastructure, boards should not only be representative of various academic areas but also reflective of diverse perspectives and student/faculty experiences.

Space

Adequate administrative space should be provided in a location on campus with high student and faculty visibility, possibly near other similar administrative or student services offices, and with easy access to meeting rooms. Affordable, highly visible space also should be easily available for campus-wide symposia/celebration days. When a faculty member assumes the role of campus undergraduate research coordinator on a rotating basis, it can be disruptive to the establishment and long-term growth of the program to rotate the office to the coordinator’s departmental office.

Infrastructure support

Funding should be provided for routine office expenses (including computer and software upgrades), the costs of workshops and events, publicity, professional development for the coordinator, and membership dues for the coordinator’s CUR membership. The publicity budget should include funds for outreach internally to students and faculty, as well as resources to promote the program’s success stories to a broader audience. External publicity may be best done in partnership with other offices on campus.

Both faculty and student scholars greatly benefit from presenting research results at professional meetings and conferences. This activity provides faculty and students the opportunities to build professional networks and generate and discuss research ideas. Institutions with exemplary undergraduate research programs provide sufficient funds for faculty and students to present research results at a minimum of one professional meeting or conference each year. Institutions should have clearly articulated processes for funding and reimbursing travel and providing staff support so the burden of navigating the university funding process does not fall on the faculty mentors or students. In addition, exemplary institutions provide funding for faculty to travel with undergraduates to conferences the individual faculty might not otherwise attend, such as student-centered conferences. Having faculty at these meetings helps students gain the most from their conference experience. In addition to providing funding for student travel to present their completed research, offices of undergraduate research often support an internal program of small equipment, supplies, and travel grants to help students initiate their research. The financial aid department should also be engaged in the support of funded undergraduate research experiences. Their involvement is critical in avoiding unintended impacts of such funding on the student’s financial aid package.

Institutions should have a research grants office to keep track of and alert faculty to funding opportunities. An office of sponsored research will also manage the grant application process, including electronic submissions with the appropriate institutional certifications, and will assist faculty with post-award administration. In cases where the establishment of an independent grants office is not possible, institutions must designate a knowledgeable person to be responsible for acting as the institutional representative for grant submissions; this person must be given sufficient reassigned time to perform this job well. Institutions with established units for administering grants should work to ensure that faculty members submitting proposals are aware of funding opportunities to involve undergraduates in their work and that they know about internal resources and programs that could bolster their proposals and help them achieve maximum impact and efficiency. Grants staff should also be available to assist with student-initiated proposals for external grants or awards that require institutional consent and support.

An essential feature of a supportive undergraduate research environment is infrastructure. Without appropriate space, equipment, and other research resources, even the most talented and creative faculty members cannot sustain productive research and scholarship that involves undergraduates.

Institutions must provide adequate, dedicated physical and virtual space for the undergraduate research enterprise to flourish; this is especially critical in the sciences, engineering, and creative arts, but it is relevant to all fields of study because secure but accessible space is necessary for faculty and students to gather for research conversations and activities. Classrooms or teaching laboratories/studios are not typically properly configured to accommodate research activities, and they may not be available at the right times or for sufficient blocks of time for productive faculty-student collaborative research to be performed. In the experimental sciences, a typical faculty-student research laboratory is 500 to 600 square feet in size, and depending on the field, due to OSHA regulations, it may or may not include a dedicated desktop workspace for students. Laboratory and studio spaces should meet modern lighting, safety, and ventilation requirements and be properly climate-controlled for use year-round. Private space may be needed for confidential research interviews, focus groups, or observational studies. For all fields of study, a comfortable conference and meeting space is critical; ideally this space would be in locations near faculty offices, studios, or laboratories. Research data and supplies should be kept in a secure location for reasons of confidentiality and safety. Appropriate virtual labs and conferencing software are critical infrastructure elements for online undergraduate research experiences.

Research practices continue to evolve. Some areas of research have moved from primarily lab-based or tied to academic locations to community-based and virtual. Virtual research experiences should align with in-person undergraduate research mentorship experiences. Using virtual meeting software, faculty should be in regular contact with their students. The pivot to a virtual research experience allows for faculty and students to minimize disruption to research projects that typically result from either faculty or student leaves. It may also facilitate research over the summer, increase opportunities for research abroad, and the use of international or cross-country collaborations. Faculty conducting virtual research and/or virtual undergraduate research mentorship will need access to software and programs that allow for sharing and simultaneous access. Security of software and data collection must also be considered.

In the experimental sciences and creative arts, instrumentation and appropriate studio equipment are critical for effective research and education. Exemplary undergraduate research programs have on-campus and virtual access to the appropriate instrumentation and equipment required for faculty-student collaborative research, and the institutions have well-defined departmental and institutional plans for the acquisition, maintenance, and periodic replacement of this infrastructure. At institutions without appropriate on-campus instrumentation, campuses should make arrangements to use equipment housed at nearby facilities (e.g., a relatively small, primarily undergraduate institution might arrange to make use of the core facilities at a nearby research institution).

To sustain a successful undergraduate research program, it is essential to have adequate and accessible library resources so that faculty and students can investigate new research ideas, search for information, prepare competitive research proposals, and write research manuscripts and student research theses and reports. Inadequate library resources can be a significant barrier to the productivity and long-term success of an undergraduate research program. Faculty and students should have access to primary literature, and institutions should have a strategy for acquiring appropriate journals, online subscriptions, databases, monographs, and books to support undergraduate research. In cases where appropriate collections are not available on-site, institutions should provide timely interlibrary loans or other means of acquiring needed documents and/or make funding available for faculty and students to travel to necessary collections. Faculty and student researchers must have access to appropriate disciplinary tools for searching primary literature and obtaining up-to-date information (e.g., SciFinder Scholar, Web of Science, EBSCO). Support for information-literacy training and development of research skills should be built into the curriculum or be part of a workshop series for undergraduate researchers.

Faculty should be provided with computer hardware equipped with an operating system of their choice, suitable for using software and utilities appropriate to research in their discipline. Similarly, students should be able to access computing equipment appropriate for the research they are conducting. A high-speed computer network should be available in offices, research spaces, and virtually, and this network should support typical protocols required for research.

Faculty and students may also need access to museum collections; local, national or regional archives; geological samples; historical artifacts; or other specialized research materials germane to their research. If these are not available on-campus, institutional support to borrow or travel to these resources is critical.

Any institution conducting research with undergraduates needs to have certain research oversight structures in place, including an Institutional Review Board (IRB) for research projects involving human subjects; an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) for research projects involving vertebrate animals; chemical, environmental, and biological hazard training, policies and oversight structures, and training and oversight structures to support responsible conduct of research. These and other mechanisms are required to comply with state and federal regulations for relevant research projects, and they are likely to be a condition for research funding. In the case of ethical review committees, they also provide oversight for the training of undergraduates in research ethics associated with human and animal subjects. The IRB and IACUC (if present) should be prepared and open to support student projects by creating oversight and approval processes that meet the unique timeline and needs of student projects and course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs).

Many institutions have discovered that support and technical staff can enhance undergraduate research by allowing faculty and students to focus more effort on research, rather than spending valuable time tending to administration of research and teaching or maintenance and repair of equipment. For example, laboratory or studio support staff can stock supplies, configure computer equipment, and/or prepare materials for teaching laboratories; instrument technicians can install and provide preventive and unscheduled maintenance for equipment; technicians can order and maintain supplies, and/or prepare routine research materials; administrative assistants can oversee fiscal management of project expenses, arrange student funding and travel reimbursements, and coordinate review processes by working with the IRB and IACUC. Additional support with computer maintenance, curating artifacts and artwork, and library references can make for a more effective research environment.

To remain effective scholars throughout their careers, faculty need the opportunity to learn new research methodologies, obtain recurrent research training, establish external research collaborations and scholarly networks, complete scholarly pursuits, freshen mentorship skills, and develop strategies to ensure inclusive research environments as well as practices to ensure the highest levels of accessibility for all students (e.g., restorative agreements, how to engage in and encourage asset- or cultural capital- mapping for students (Longmire-Avital, 2019; Mekolichick and Gibbs, 2012; Shanahan, Ackley-Holbrook, Hall, Stewart and Walkington, 2015; Yosso, 2005), developing and using positionality statements embedded within bios to foster relationship building, and facilitating dialogue in addition to developing inclusive group processes). Many of these activities are part of a robust faculty mentoring program. Such professional development opportunities are critical to undergraduate research because faculty members who are current scholars in their areas of expertise are able to engage students in research that is relevant and conforming to modern praxis. Other professionals involved in overseeing undergraduate research also benefit from professional development, and relevant opportunities should be made available to them too.

Professional leaves are essential for faculty to remain current, knowledgeable, productive scholars and, by extension, effective mentors of undergraduate research. Thus, institutions should promote regular opportunities for research leaves, and if possible, this should include both sabbaticals and leaves for junior faculty. Recurrent training is especially critical in the sciences, engineering, and arts because rapid technological changes require faculty to acquire new competencies to continue to be productive scholars.

Opportunities to learn new research skills and techniques via workshops, mini-conferences, short courses, or research training “camps” should be encouraged and supported.

It is important to recognize that faculty and administrators may benefit from participating in workshops, conferences, and communities of practice not directly related to their research. Institutions that support travel to non-research meetings provide career and professional development that also can enhance undergraduate research. Some examples include pedagogical techniques that can be applied to undergraduate research, such as project-based learning or course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs); diversity training that allows faculty to become more effective at supporting and mentoring students of a variety of backgrounds; training on how to purposefully implement and assess undergraduate research programs; and how to map undergraduate research experience to benefit the world of work.

Over the last four decades, it has become evident that the success of undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry is highly dependent on the effectiveness of the relationship between the student and the faculty research mentor. While students derive multiple benefits from the relationship with an effective mentor (e.g., skill development, career guidance, sponsorship, emotional support, role modeling), the mentor also derives immediate and long-term benefits, such as a sense of personal satisfaction in witnessing the growth of future researchers, increased productivity of their research agenda and future collegial and professional relationships. Best mentoring practices have been identified and documented and may be reflected upon through mentor training, where experiences are shared with other mentors. Institutes, organizations and projects (e.g., the National Research Mentoring Network, CIMER, the University of New Mexico Mentoring Institute) provide a number of resources and mentor training programs.

Faculty

Mentor training is a good area for collaboration between the undergraduate research office, the faculty development office, and externally funded undergraduate research support programs, and offices, departments, or centers. Ongoing opportunities for faculty to reflect on their mentoring skills must include cultural humility, implicit bias awareness (includes stereotypes and micro-aggressions), bystander training (specifically how to effectively respond to bias), as well as, other inclusive practices. Discussions of mentoring issues between colleagues and framing student experiences for their next steps are essential to providing a student-centered research experience. Undergraduate research programs are encouraged to offer orientation sessions for mentors that clearly outline faculty, student, and program expectations and other best practices. Faculty should be encouraged to attend professional development meetings on mentoring, diversity, equity, inclusion, and leadership development. Faculty should also be encouraged to draft individual professional development plans. Junior faculty should be mentored by more experienced peers as they begin to juggle the potentially competing demands of teaching, service, scholarship, and mentoring of undergraduates.

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows

Recognizing that at some institutions, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows play a significant role in mentoring undergraduate researchers, appropriate training opportunities should be provided to enhance their skills and ensure undergraduates are receiving excellent mentoring. This is critical because many of these graduate students and postdocs will eventually assume faculty positions and become the next generation of faculty mentors.

An institution that values undergraduate research as a high-priority activity that is integral to its educational mission will provide clear, tangible forms of recognition for faculty and students who engage in it.

If undergraduate research is an important institutional activity, it should be clearly and prominently described in promotion and tenure guidelines for faculty. Many institutions specifically identify mentoring, faculty-student collaborative research, and publication of student co-authored peer-reviewed research as especially valued activities for promotion and tenure. Understanding that using innovative pedagogy, such as project-based learning and course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), can sometimes result in lower student evaluations initially, the department should have clearly stated policies related to the use of student evaluations for tenure and promotion, and how to account for temporary dips in student evaluations when implementing student-centered pedagogy. To be effective, promotion and tenure guidelines must be clear and effectively communicated to new faculty and to new members of tenure and promotion committees or faculty evaluation teams.

Likewise, undergraduate research activity and productivity should be recognized in faculty salary reviews and decisions on merit pay awards.

Institutions with exemplary undergraduate research programs recognize and publicize the importance of undergraduate research through public awards for excellence. Programs and departments that provide outstanding undergraduate research experiences for students should be recognized. Examples of recognition include but are not limited to awards for excellent faculty mentoring, outstanding undergraduate research theses, prize-winning student publications, and outstanding research posters.

Excellent undergraduate research programs promote their successes by prominently featuring examples and the impact of undergraduate research on the institution’s website, in its print and electronic publications, and in its outreach to the public and social media. In addition, students involved in undergraduate research may be encouraged to apply for prestigious scholarships and graduate fellowships, and any such awards should be widely publicized. Wide publicity should also be given to any awards that faculty receive from professional societies and any awards received by students at professional meetings. Appropriate infrastructure and administrative support are required to identify successes and utilize germane publicity outlets.

External funding is essential for the development of a rich, productive, and cutting-edge faculty-student research environment. Although the availability and importance of external funding for research varies by discipline and sometimes by state and region, an institutional culture of supporting and encouraging the acquisition of external research funding is important to sustain research. Very few institutions have sufficient resources to sustain a viable research program with internal funding alone. Rather, institutions and faculty must partner to leverage internal funding with external funding to sustain strong undergraduate research programs and infrastructure over the long term. It should be emphasized that competitiveness in external funding is directly related to research productivity, that is, the production of peer-reviewed research scholarship. External funding comes with increased expectations for the dissemination of peer-reviewed projects. To sustain an excellent undergraduate research program, institutions must provide an environment in which faculty have the time necessary to meet the increased expectations for publication or other recognized types of dissemination.

In successful undergraduate research environments, faculty members seek and receive external funding to help support undergraduate research students, research technicians, graduate students, and/or postdoctoral fellows, and also to acquire research equipment and infrastructure. Although many research grants may be used, in part, to support undergraduate research, there are grant programs specifically designated for undergraduate research and for predominantly undergraduate institutions. Examples at the federal level include the National Science Foundation’s Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) and Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs, as well as the National Institutes of Health’s Academic Research Enhancement Awards (AREA, or R15), Research Education Programs through various institutes (REP, or R25) and the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement – Undergraduate (RISE-U). The McNair Scholars Program from the U.S. Department of Education specifically funds undergraduate research opportunities in all disciplines for under-represented, first-generation, and financially needy college students. Some private foundations (e.g., the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation) are specifically funding to support research with undergraduates. Especially in disciplines in which research infrastructure is critical for high-quality research, external funding is essential for creating and maintaining a strong teaching and research environment.

Individuals committed to undergraduate research will also seek and receive institutional funding to support it. Some institutions dedicate funds from their student employment opportunities program to support students engaged in undergraduate research.

An essential element of all research is dissemination. Peer-reviewed publications, juried art and performances are often viewed as pinnacle dissemination. All public dissemination, albeit virtually, on-campus, for community partners, or otherwise, should be institutionally advertised and celebrated.

With an emphasis on process, CUR defines undergraduate research as a mentored investigation or creative inquiry conducted by undergraduates that seeks to make a scholarly or artistic contribution to knowledge. As such, research results should be disseminated in a form that is appropriate for a scholar in the field; the highest level of dissemination of undergraduate research is in the form of peer-reviewed publication, conference presentation, exhibition, or performance. In science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) or the social sciences, for example, this would typically mean a published article in a peer-reviewed journal or an oral or poster presentation at a conference. In this instance, when students contribute significantly to the project, they should be included as co-authors and should be involved in the writing and editing of the manuscript. In the arts or humanities, dissemination might be a juried exhibition, public performance, or publication. Preparing students for research dissemination also provides an excellent opportunity to discuss the ethics of co-authorship. It is important that faculty and students strive for this level of scholarship because it typically provides the greatest intellectual benefits for students and is essential in faculty reward structures and for faculty seeking external research funding, especially at institutions where conducting research is one of the criteria used for promotion. Even as community colleges move more in the direction of integrating research into the curriculum or engaging students in summer research programs, publications, and exhibitions become very impactful experiences.

Professional research meetings provide excellent opportunities for students to present research to other scholars in the field, gain feedback on their work, conduct professional networking (especially for seeking entry into graduate programs and/or internships), and try out presentations of research results prior to peer-reviewed publication. Institutions should endeavor to have policies and funding to encourage students’ participation in such activities. Students who attend professional meetings, either virtually or in-person, should receive mentoring on how to navigate such opportunities, as well as connecting these experiences to advanced degrees and career readiness competencies.

Not all undergraduates are ready to present research results at national professional meetings, especially early in their academic careers. For such undergraduates, a student research conference (e.g., the National Conference on Undergraduate Research) or a regional disciplinary conference might be a more appropriate venue to gain valuable experience in presenting and disseminating findings, connecting with others in the discipline, honing professional skills and gaining feedback on their ideas. Institutions should encourage and support student participation in these conferences.

Most institutions with successful undergraduate research programs host on-campus research symposia that bring together the community of undergraduate scholars, their mentors (e.g., faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students), staff, and the community at large in events that celebrate undergraduate research. These events provide opportunities for student-student, faculty-student and faculty-faculty networking and cross-disciplinary conversation. They are also excellent venues to distribute achievement awards in mentoring, publications with undergraduate co-authors and grant awards that involve undergraduate research training. Outstanding institutions promote broad student attendance so that more undergraduates may benefit from a research-rich environment and the opportunity to learn from their peers. A campus undergraduate research office that organizes such events may also offer other kinds of support, such as workshops on writing abstracts, on making and presenting a research poster, and on creating and delivering an oral presentation. This assistance may greatly enhance the quality of the campus or virtual event and provide multiple learning and professional skill-building opportunities for students.

Undergraduate research is fundamentally a student-centered activity that involves faculty mentoring. Institutions have a responsibility to highlight the educational and professional impact of the activity. As a high-impact practice, faculty and administrative leaders should design undergraduate research experiences that are equitable and accessible, incorporate the best practices in undergraduate education, and highlight the connection to advanced degrees and career readiness competencies such as those detailed by the National Association of Career and Employers (NACE). Relevant issues include, but are not limited to, providing multiple opportunities for all students to engage in undergraduate research experiences within and beyond the physical and virtual classroom, high expectations for the student, an emphasis on ethical conduct in research, outlining paths to progress, assessing student development, connecting the research topic to societal and community issues, and demonstrating the benefits of undergraduate research experiences for students’ next steps. Awareness of how societal barriers and inequities impact the opportunities of some students must also be considered when designing and implementing an undergraduate research experience. Students should leave with both transportable skills and products that provide leverage and momentum for their next step.

Departments and programs should have mechanisms to identify and equitably recruit undergraduate researchers early in their careers. Assessment data indicate that undergraduates make the most intellectual gains and have the greatest opportunity for becoming research partners and co-authors of peer-reviewed publications, if they are involved in faculty-supervised research early and repeatedly in their academic careers (Lopatto 2009; Mieg, Ambos, Brew, Galli, and Lehmann, 2022), and if they are invited to make long-term commitments to research. Early involvement also helps students acquire multiple research experiences during their undergraduate years, and this may help them hone professional skills and define their career interests. Equally important is building robust pathways for transfer students, online, and adult learners to engage in sustained experiences within and beyond the classroom. One way to provide early and equitable access to research is to embed course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) in lower-division courses and in required courses. Additionally, pursuing strategic partnerships with offices, centers, or programs that serve first-generation, historically underrepresented, and excluded minority students would alleviate potential delays in awareness and access to research opportunities. These partnerships also signal to students that inclusive practices are a priority in the research setting.

Faculty mentors should set high, clear, and realistic expectations for students engaged in undergraduate research. Such expectations might include, but not be limited to, the level of independent work expected, the minimum number of hours per week devoted to research, the minimum length of the research commitment (e.g., one semester or a full academic year), periodic and final oral presentations, a final report in a disciplinary-specific format, or other evidence of regular research progress, as well as articulated and transparent connections of their experiences to the world of work. Such expectations should recognize the many demands on students’ time but should nevertheless encourage students to expand their engagement. Faculty should have regular discussions with students to provide feedback on their progress and revise expectations as needed. Recognizing that excellent mentoring involves two-way communication about expectations, students should be encouraged to develop academic and career goals and discuss those with their research mentor, so that the mentor can advise/assist the student, follow-up periodically on progress and adjust as time progresses.

Excellent undergraduate research environments provide opportunities for students to become involved at different points along the developmental pathway. First- and second-year students may begin engagement by performing duties that assist faculty or other members of a research team, becoming accustomed to the culture of research and learning skills along the way. Students may also begin by working on a project designed by a faculty mentor or one that is a continuation of another student’s project. At the more advanced end of the developmental pathway, students may conceive their own projects based on the relevant literature and take full ownership of the projects. All points of engagement offer valuable experiences for students. Faculty mentors should encourage students to increase their levels of involvement over time, and programs should be structured to allow students to advance along a developmental continuum. Students should be informed about differing levels of engagement and development, and, as milestones are achieved, students should be provided with the knowledge to be able to assess their own progress, and articulate their learning and transferable professional skills gained. Institutions may wish to clearly label programs, courses, and student outcomes as “beginning, intermediate, and advanced.”
Well-designed undergraduate research experiences allow students to take increasing intellectual ownership of their research projects as they become acquainted with relevant research methodology. Students can and should be offered choices of appropriate research projects and be allowed to contribute intellectually to the work. Further, the creation of appropriate products aligns with a reparative model for critical mentoring (Longmire-Avital, 2020b), that reviews student signature work as an essential outcome for crafting an equitable and inclusive undergraduate research experience for first-generation, historically underrepresented and excluded students from minority groups. Aiming for a publication or conference presentation is common but not exhaustive of the types of products that students can produce. The signature work should reflect student interests and support the next steps in their academic or professional journeys.

Guidelines and expectations for sharing scholarly credit with students should be available for students and faculty. Campus policies should establish and clearly articulate how issues such as authorship and intellectual property rights, as well as ownership of data, will be handled. One excellent way to make those guidelines and policies available to students is through responsible conduct of research workshops.

Peer-to-peer interaction in the context of a community of undergraduate research scholars provides opportunity for student learning, for exploration of research and academic disciplines beyond their own experiences, understanding how the skills, knowledge and dispositions learned are transferable to next steps and for establishing an inclusive equitable environment that promotes diversity. Having a critical mass of students involved in undergraduate research makes it practical to develop opportunities for peer mentoring, regular disciplinary and interdisciplinary research seminars, research group meetings, and professional development workshops for students—either virtually or in person. A broad commitment of faculty at the department or program level is necessary to provide sufficient student research opportunities to build such a diverse community of student scholars. Institutional support, such as through an office of undergraduate research and institutional partners, such as career services, facilitates the development of peer-to-peer interactions.

An important outcome of having a critical mass of undergraduate researchers and of their early and sustained involvement is the building of research teams with varying levels of experience or different disciplinary backgrounds. Such teams allow for peer mentoring opportunities that are important for intellectual and professional development. Research teams also allow multiple students to share a single research project, with each team member being responsible for a specific part. Institutions can consider providing funding for student assistants/peer mentors for courses with CURE elements. Pursuit of teams should also include clear plans for diversity, equity, and inclusion training. Specifically, training that centers on implicit bias and micro-aggression prevention and reduction. The use of peer mentoring and teams also generates an opportunity to partner with research students and labs at other institutions, which would expand the perspectives and voices in the research experience. Teams and peer mentoring are student-centered; however, this approach generates an opportunity to nurture peer mentorship opportunities among colleagues either at the same or another institution. This may be a critical level of support for first-generation, historically underrepresented minority students and faculty when engaging HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), MSIs (Minority Serving Institutions), and/or other institutions that are not considered predominately White.

Institutions that strive for excellence should recognize and embrace opportunities to combine undergraduate research with other engaging experiences when students have achieved a level of research competence and self-efficacy. Opportunities for students to participate in research projects with different mentors, with an interdisciplinary team, or in projects that draw upon multidisciplinary practices provide expanded learning and experience. Opportunities for students to conduct research abroad, in a structured program, as part of a global team, or as an independent study are increasingly common. Students and their faculty mentors should be encouraged and supported in finding ways to apply their research through community-based research with service-learning programs, in exploring entrepreneurial applications, and in considering policy implications. Students who conduct research should be expected to be able to communicate the results of their projects and the transformational nature of their experiences to citizens, public leaders, and recruiters. Opportunities for students to articulate their experiences beyond the academic community and for various audiences are the hallmark of a mature undergraduate research culture and can be illustrated with events such as state capitol days, community presentations (e.g., to chambers of commerce and tourism boards), podcasts, museum exhibits, docent-led tours, as well as in interviews and with talent recruiters.

Capstone courses

When thinking about combining HIPs, infusing undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative inquiry (URSCI) in Capstone courses is a logical and easy fit. The infusion of URSCI in the capstone can be implemented using various frames, including team-based, community-based, or individual projects. As a culminating experience, this course also provides a great opportunity to surface and highlight the connections between the skills, knowledge and dispositions gained through the URSCI process and career readiness competencies. An added benefit of leveraging these two high-impact practices together is the accessibility created by infusing URSCI into the curriculum.

Study abroad

Bringing together global education and undergraduate research experiences can be a very powerful combination. URSCI experiences abroad create the opportunity for exposure to and implementation of different methodological and theoretical approaches, cross-cultural comparisons and syntheses, expansion of professional networks, and cultural exchange. While the benefits are many, there are some special considerations to reflect upon, including potential cultural and language barriers, data rights and transfer, import/export controls, material transfer, personnel security risks, political volatility, differing international and in-country laws relative to intellectual property, copyright, patents and commercialization, research with human and animal subjects approvals, and research sponsorship. Relationships with in-country host institutions, faculty, and consortia can help bridge gaps and navigate opportunities. The cost of research opportunities abroad is often a consideration, and attention should be given to exploring scholarships and partner opportunities within and beyond the institution to ensure access and equity in opportunity.

Research internships

As the national focus on internships increases, considering the value of research internships in industry or government entities can be a powerful component of a comprehensive undergraduate research program. Developing partnerships with local, regional, national and international industry, government, and research facilities can provide valuable work-based learning experiences. For smaller programs, leveraging existing networks can offer increased student opportunities and sometimes provide funding to expand access and opportunity.

Faculty need to be directly accessible to students when conducting research in collaboration with or under the faculty member’s supervision. This availability allows students to engage in discussions that can range from the research itself to academic, career, and even personal matters, allowing the mentor to switch roles as coach, sponsor, or counselor. In turn, a student will feel included and develop a sense of belonging to a community of practice.

Community engagement

Combining undergraduate research with community engagement has the advantage of developing students with a deeper sense of purpose and a better understanding of their communities and their roles as citizens, while collaborating with individuals at the partner organization who may act as co-mentors. Partners may be from the public sector (city, county, state), the business sector, or a philanthropic organization, with many being health organizations. This equitable and collaborative approach must recognize the unique strengths that each academic and community partner brings. Research shows that the best partnerships are those in which the community partner is allowed to decide what the research question or focus will be, while recognizing that the project should enhance the faculty member’s teaching credentials and/or producing co-authored publishable results. Simultaneously, faculty and community partners should ensure that undergraduates involved in the research project have a valuable learning experience that leads to the implementation of a solution to a community problem. Very often, projects involve engagement with historically marginalized and oppressed groups to generate transformative change in communities. Undergraduate students should be encouraged to reflect often on the experience’s impact on their perception of their values as citizens.

Within academic institutions, these community-based participatory research projects present excellent opportunities for collaborations between undergraduate research offices, centers of community engagement and faculty members with the aim of combining knowledge with action to achieve social change. Effective collaborative partnerships develop a vision to grow gradually by conducting a series of short-term projects to achieve long-term goals.

Departments and programs should design curricula that expose students to skills necessary to undertake undergraduate research, and curricula should be designed in ways to facilitate and scaffold faculty and student involvement in undergraduate research.

Institutions that highly value undergraduate research have departments and programs that are careful to design curricula to be supportive of research. Some basic principles are articulated here. CUR has compiled many specific examples of research-supportive practices (Karukstis and Elgren 2007).

Content

Successful and sustainable disciplinary or interdisciplinary undergraduate research programs are buttressed by a curriculum that provides students with the necessary training and methodology for them to be successful in the research environment. Research-supportive curricula also build in experiences that provide scaffolding for undergraduate research, allowing students to acquire and practice transferable skills that can be later applied to independent or faculty-student research as well as in their careers. A research-supportive curriculum will expose all students to the importance of research and research ethics and result in students gaining an appreciation for research methodology in their area of study, even if they do not participate in undergraduate research.

Integration of teaching and research

A powerful method of undergraduate education is the integration of teaching and research through course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) or authentic learning experiences (ALEs). CUREs provide opportunities for students to develop knowledge that is new to the discipline (authentic research), whereas in ALEs, students develop knowledge that is new only to them. For example, teaching laboratory techniques in the sciences through a CURE, typically assigns students portions of real research projects in which the requisite coursework, techniques, and skills will be encountered. Under the right conditions, students participating in CUREs may become legitimate co-authors of peer-reviewed publications due to their contribution to the research project. In some disciplines, particularly in the humanities and engineering, themed senior seminars and capstone courses provide opportunities for faculty to mentor high-caliber research projects that may be disseminated at professional or undergraduate research meetings.
Integration of teaching and research is a very inclusive practice that broadens participation and increases student engagement. The practice helps recruit students for participation in other undergraduate research projects, allows faculty to build research supervision into their teaching load and often results in higher productivity for the faculty member. To achieve these kinds of experiences, faculty and departments need to think creatively about what courses they must offer and be open to offering courses on special topics that allow for the integration of research experiences. Administrators should be encouraged to support CUREs.

Course scheduling and management of faculty teaching loads

Undergraduate research requires a significant commitment of time by both faculty members and students. Faculty need to be available during the academic year to mentor undergraduates and also, depending on their field, to conduct research on their own. Toward this end, both the quantity and quality of faculty members’ teaching loads should be carefully managed to allow sufficient time during the week for faculty-student interaction. Department chairs and program directors should endeavor to create blocks of time for faculty to devote to supervising undergraduate research, for example, ensuring that one day per week or each afternoon is free of classes. In addition, whenever possible, it is desirable to assign multiple sections of one course rather than multiple courses when designing a faculty member’s teaching load. Such considerations are important as a CUR survey revealed that faculty members were decreasingly satisfied with their ability to sustain productive faculty-student research beyond nine contact hours of teaching per week (Wenzel 2001).

Training in responsible conduct of research

All undergraduate students should be instructed in the ethics of responsible research. This can be implemented within individual courses or programs, or the training may be conducted campus-wide. Additional opportunities for training in the responsible conduct of research should be provided for summer research students. Funding agencies have made training in research ethics a requirement for funding undergraduate researchers and ask that the training be face-to-face or virtually synchronous (not just online and self-paced) to encourage discussion. In addition to acquiring knowledge regarding research misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and fraud, students should be made aware of questionable research practices that do not necessarily constitute misconduct but that can jeopardize the integrity of projects and the commitment of stakeholders.

Professional and career readiness skills workshops

Undergraduate students should receive specific training in the appropriate oral, written and visual research communication skills, for example, writing research reports and papers; designing posters; giving an effective oral research presentation; applying for fellowships and graduate programs; applying for juried art competitions; networking at conferences; etc. This training may be incorporated in gateway courses for disciplinary majors, or it may be offered separately as training by undergraduate research offices, disciplinary departments, or research programs. Programs of excellence are also transparent in helping students articulate the valuable skills they are honing in their research experiences that employers seek in undergraduates. Faculty mentors are expected to discuss a variety of professional skills with undergraduates; however, programs of excellence will ensure that students have multiple opportunities to enhance their professional and career readiness skills.

A characteristic of excellence in undergraduate research is taking the next step to help students frame and articulate their research experiences in ways that potential employers will receive and understand.

Whenever possible, institutions should have a mechanism to award course credit to students for participating in undergraduate research. In some cases, up to 25 percent of a student’s normal semester course credit is awarded for research participation. In collaboration with faculty mentors, institutions should define prerequisites and expectations for awarding academic credit for research and scholarly projects. In addition, institutions and faculty should find funds to compensate students who conduct research during the academic year. This is particularly important for students who are financially disadvantaged and must work to help support themselves. For those students, working as undergraduate researchers replaces jobs that generally do not develop the type of transferrable skills that undergraduate research provides and gives such students a stronger motivation to stay engaged in their academic pursuits.

Some programs require all graduating majors to be engaged in research, during their senior year or at some other time. Ideally, these students should have the opportunity to be involved in long-term research projects with the potential to culminate in a significant written report or artistic demonstration that draws from the literature and contributes to the field. Students should also publicly disseminate this work via presentation or exhibition. Many institutions with strong undergraduate research programs require all students awarded departmental honors to conduct a long-term, intensive research project that results in a significant thesis or oral defense.

A robust summer research program is essential to a vibrant undergraduate research environment. For students, the summer months offer a time when they can concentrate exclusively on a research project. For faculty at more teaching-intensive institutions, the summer months provide the only time during the calendar year when they can focus their efforts exclusively on research. For faculty at all institutions, this is a time with fewer external and institutional commitments, and it can afford the opportunity for more intensive mentoring of undergraduates. Summer research programs must have an equitable model for providing support for participation. Summer is a time for some students to earn funds for the upcoming academic years. An inclusive and accessible research program needs to be attentive to student needs (e.g., housing, monetary support, transportation).

In a supportive undergraduate research environment, faculty teaching responsibilities should not include the summer months. This is especially important at more teaching-intensive institutions, where the summer months are typically the most productive times for research. It is also important for institutions to avoid creating imbalanced incentives for summer teaching that serve as disincentives for involvement in research and scholarship.

Many institutions provide compensation to faculty to conduct summer research with undergraduates. This compensation can take the form of faculty stipends, course credit, and/or credit toward research leaves; in some instances, funding for research supplies may be provided in lieu of or in addition to faculty compensation. If institutions value faculty involvement in summer research with undergraduates, compensation for this activity must be competitive with conflicting activities, such as summer teaching.

Students should receive adequate compensation for conducting summer research. Ideally, compensation should be above the minimum wage. Typical summer stipends for a 10-week, full-time research assistantship supported by federal programs are $5,000 to $8,000. In some cases, students may receive academic credit for summer research in addition to a summer research stipend.

Attractive, on-campus student housing should be available to summer research students. Housing students on campus helps create an academic community of scholars during the summer months and facilitates summer research programming. Many institutions offer summer housing at no cost to students. Providing inexpensive, attractive summer housing helps recruit students to do summer research, especially when other job opportunities may be more attractive in terms of salary compensation. Access to facilities and services (library, computer center, student health and counseling centers, recreation center, food services, etc.) should be provided for summer research students.

Institutions should devise mechanisms to bring the summer research community together for common activities, including purposeful interaction between faculty and students. In addition to social activities, educational activities for students should include professional development and career workshops, ethics training, and speakers on research areas and careers. The summer is an ideal time for training activities that can be done in smaller, focused groups; this may include journal clubs, training in technical skills or data analysis, and introduction to new research approaches.

Students should have the opportunity to present the results of summer research to their peers and to faculty and administrators. Typical venues include poster sessions, oral presentations, performances, or exhibitions. Events can be formal or informal and may be scheduled at the end of the summer or at the beginning of the fall semester. Summer research symposia provide students with opportunities to learn discipline-specific dissemination practices, receive feedback on their work, and hone career readiness skills. They also allow the campus community to celebrate the students’ work. Campuses can use these opportunities to engage the students’ families, whenever possible, and the broader community beyond the campus. This is especially important for first-generation college students.

When a campus is host to a number of summer programs (e.g., multiple NSF (National Science Foundation) or NIH REU sites, department programs, McNair programs, etc.), institutions that aspire to excellence will coordinate programs and collaborations on appropriate activities. Not only does such coordination and collaboration result in efficient use of resources and encourage the sharing of best practices among programs, but students also benefit from interaction with peers in other disciplines. Offices of undergraduate research, when available at the institution, are an ideal place to centralize the coordination of such activities.

Many summer programs host undergraduates from other institutions to expand the reach of their program and diversify their summer research community. When visiting students are part of the summer undergraduate research program, several types of support should be available:

• An orientation to the campus, community, and program should be held. Information on safety and security issues and information about student services should be covered in the orientation (e.g., tornado safety, night-time security, student health center, counseling center).
• Students should have multiple points of contact available to address any concerns about the program, their housing arrangements, emergency situations and illness, and personal situations. Institutions should pay special attention to how it provides access to student health, counseling, and Title IX services to the visiting students. Contact information for additional faculty or staff beyond their research mentor should be available.
• Activities designed to encourage interaction between visiting students and native students should be arranged.
• Thought should be given to the student experience “after hours,” on weekends, and during holidays when students are not engaged in their research. This is especially important for students without their own transportation or who are spending the summer in an unfamiliar environment.
• Housing and meal accommodations should be arranged in advance for visiting students, and their needs for transportation to campus or the research site (if needed) should be addressed. Students should be made aware that members of the residential-life staff are available to provide assistance.
• Logistics support for registration, housing, payment of stipends, and other fiscal administration should be provided so that visiting students and faculty mentors do not need to navigate the fiscal issues without assistance. Insurance and liability issues should be considered.
• Faculty members mentoring guest students should understand their responsibilities and the program’s goals and have contact information.

Institutions and programs of excellence will have multiple approaches to assessment to recognize successes, illuminate gaps, and collect benchmarking data. Assessment plans should be appropriate for the context and purposeful in design.

Research studies demonstrate the value of undergraduate research experiences on learning and student growth. Undergraduate programs and faculty mentors ought to consider the student learning outcomes of undergraduate research and develop a plan to assess the effectiveness of their program in meeting these learning outcomes and mapping them to career readiness skills (Lopatto 2009; Mekolichick 2021; Mieg, Ambos, Brew, Galli, and Lehmann, 2022).

• a mechanism to obtain feedback from students and faculty on their satisfaction with logistical operations and program activities
• a sustainable method to collect data on the number and demographic
• variables of students who participate in undergraduate research (both through co-curricular faculty mentoring or through the curriculum such as in CUREs), the level of their engagement, and outcomes resulting from
• their participation (presentations, attendance at off-campus conferences, publications, etc.)
• a sustainable method to collect data on the efforts of faculty mentors and outcomes resulting from their work with undergraduates (co-authored publications)
• a mechanism to track external funding that directly or indirectly supports the undergraduate research enterprise
• a mechanism and encouragement for students to report on post-graduation educational and career plans related to their undergraduate research experiences
• resources (personnel, software to create databases and surveys, encouragement for students and faculty to respond to queries, etc.) to develop and sustain assessment and collection of benchmarking data.