Eligibility and Submission

  • Students must primarily, or dually, be enrolled in the College of Agricultural Sciences. The student must be majoring in a College of Ag Sciences major or pre-major.
  • Supervising faculty must be within the College of Agricultural Sciences. (Exceptions may be granted for faculty with related research interest at Commonwealth campuses.)
  • Each student may submit one application per award cycle.
  • Proposals must be independently authored by individual students. Group submissions are not accepted at this time.
  • Fully completed applications must be submitted to AgUgradResearch@psu.edu by 5:00 p.m. on the deadline date. Students will receive a confirmation of receipt within two business days of submission.

Award Guidelines and Expectations

  • All project work is to be conducted within the award cycle. At the end of the award cycle, unspent award dollars will be recouped by the Office for Undergraduate Education. Please notify us of any special circumstances as soon as possible.
  • Award recipients are expected to present their research at either the Gamma Sigma Delta Research Expo or the Penn State Undergraduate Research Exhibition. If the project timeline does not align with these events, conference presentation will be considered.
  • A maximum of $500 may be budgeted for supplies. The primary use of funds should be used for student wages. Please work with your faculty supervisor to establish the wage rate.
  • All current Federal, State, Local, and University guidelines for health and travel must be followed.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a basic guiding principle for all academic activity at The Pennsylvania State University, and all members of the University community are expected to act in accordance with this principle. This principle will be held to a high standard and any arising issues will be dealt with accordingly.

  • By signature of the proposal form, you attest that the proposal is an original, student developed work and does not contain in-whole or in-part sections of written material from previously submitted grants, reviews, or published material that would constitute plagiarism.
  • Students may participate in research that is part of a larger, faculty-led project. However, the student must clearly identify their individual role and scope of the project, and must author the proposal independently.
  • Proposals submitted by individuals other than the student applicant will not be accepted.

Selection and Notification

A panel of representatives from the Office for Undergraduate Education and the Office for Research and Graduate Education will review the proposals using a scoring rubric. Students and faculty supervisors will be notified via email regarding the outcome of their submission.

Undergraduate Research Award Proposal Form

*Please download and save the forms in order to properly complete the fields. The formulas will not work unless the forms are opened using Adobe.

Academic Year Proposal Form

Summer Proposal Form