• Submit the proposal electronically to: our@lamar.edu
• Email subject line: "OUR_Grant_Proposal".  All the submissions should be in one file with the name “studentlastname_firstname_OUR_proposal”. For example: Smith_ John_OUR_Proposal
• A support letter from the mentor(s) should be sent directly by the mentor(s) with the subject line “student's_lastname_ firstname_OUR_LOR”. For example Smith_ John_OUR_LOR

The deadline for submission of proposals is 6 p.m. CST, Sept. 25.

Proposal Format

Title of the Proposal:

Area of Research: Choose either HASBSEB (Humanities, Arts, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Education and Business) or STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Please consult with your mentor regarding your choice. You may also look at the attached rubric to learn more about the specific requirements for each of these two areas. 

Student Information

Name: 
Email Address:
Student’s Major:

Departmental affiliation:
(repeat this block for each student co-participant on the same O.U.R. grant)

Topic of Research: (e.g. microbiology, water treatment)

The Department/Center/School/Makerspace where the research project will be carried out. The location should not necessarily be the same with the department associated with the student’s major and can be located outside Lamar. The choice for this location should be done wisely and approved by the mentor(s) in his/her letter of support, so credit for research can be correctly attributed to the deserving department, center, makerspace, etc. In case the research will be done outside Lamar, an acceptance email or written notification sent to the mentor, should be provided by the host institution or person, and should be included in the proposal. Lack of such evidence of support disqualifies the proposal.

Faculty Mentor(s)' Name:
Faculty Mentor(s) Department(s):
Faculty Mentor Email:

(repeat this block for each mentor)

Is an I.R.B. approval needed for running the project (choose the correct answer): Yes or No

Eligibility Criteria

CGPA (should be greater than 2.8):
Major GPA (should be greater than 3.0):

Enrolled in current fall semester (coursework hours)*:
Enrolled in the next spring semester (coursework hours)*:

• If lower than 12 but greater than 9, then a brief explanation (letter or email) for the reasons of this situation is needed from the Chair of the Department. This explanation needs to be added to the proposal submission file.

• An abstract of the proposed research project or creative activity project (maximum 100 words).
• A brief narrative describing the rationale for the project (maximum 600 words in font Arial or Times New Roman and size 12). This may include the significance of the proposed work and goals. Please indicate the development of any potential/expected products. Please indicate the intellectual merit and the broader impact of your project if the case. Tables and figure captions do not count toward the 600 words and they should be included at the end of the narrative, and before the bibliography
• Bibliography is outside the 600 words count and should be listed on a separate page.
• Any O.U.R. grant proposal written in a peer-reviewed professional journal format is not acceptable and will be rejected without review

• A detailed Budget Justification (on one-page maximum) including all categories of anticipated expenditures must accompany the proposal. Shipping and handling fees should be included in the budget.
• All additional funding sources previously involved in the proposed project, if any, must be disclosed on the Budget page.
• Proposals must also include a brief Timeline (on one-page maximum) for accomplishing the project’s goals.
• The Timeline should indicate the interval when the request for research support will be processed. By default, this is considered between Nov. 1 and Dec. 1. If a project requires placing the research support (partially or totally) past January 1, then this should be clearly indicated in the Budget Justification and the Timeline, and a clear reason for this planning should be presented. It is expected that all research support requisitions to be completed by O.U.R. staff by the Kick-off Day.
• If student(s) has/have to print posters for presentation at other conferences than EXPO, please encumber the poster printing cost (no more than $100 per poster) in the budget section. The posters for EXPO will be printed by O.U.R. using a different budget.

• Each faculty mentor must write one supporting letter for each proposal that he or she sponsors. A proposal without supporting letter(s) from each mentor will not be reviewed. The letter should be sent by the mentor to cristian.bahrim@lamar.edu, by the submission deadline, with the subject line “student's_ lastname_firstname_OUR_LOR”. For example: Smith_ John_OUR_LOR. This letter should include a clear statement about student’s ability to carry on the proposed work and another statement about mentor’s involvement in the project, including his/her support offered with lab space, computer access, and/or direct supervision. For more specific details, please see the Faculty Mentor Guidelines.
• The mentor is requested to enforce the research ethics during the writing of the proposal, as well as during his/her mentorship of the whole project, if accepted. Also, he/she should take care of having the appropriate I.R.B. approval for the project. If an I.R.B. approval is needed to run the project this should be stated in the Supporting Letter.

The O.U.R. reviewers will use the following guidelines to assess the O.U.R. grant proposals. Therefore, these guidelines should inspire and guide all students to prepare his/her research proposal.

• The proposal should have a research hypothesis or question/thesis or creative idea that is interesting, new, appropriate, and significant for an undergraduate project. The potential for future development of the project is a factor the reviewers will take into consideration.
• The applicant describes research methods that are appropriate to the discipline and the project.
• Literature review of relevant existing similar methods or/and interest in the field of research.
• Applicant explains his or her ideas in an organized and compelling way with a detailed budget and timeline.
• The faculty mentor’s support letter strongly indicates that the research project is significant and gives strong evidence that the applicant has the qualifications to carry out the project successfully within the allocated time period. The mentor should clearly indicate his/her level of mentorship for the respective project. The mentor will be requested to enforce the research ethics during writing the proposal, as well as during his/her mentorship of the whole project, if accepted. Also, he/she should take care of having the appropriate I.R.B. approval for the project.
• Any proposal written in a peer-reviewed professional journal format is not acceptable and they will be rejected without review.
• The two criteria of eligibility, which are GPA/CGPA and enrollment Fall/Spring, should be verified. If any of the criteria are not fulfilled, the reviewer should make a remark in this sense in his/her report (eventually in the rubric, under the line Grand Total Points (Part 1+Part II)).

$500 paid in two installments. One-half will be paid at the end of the fall semester upon completion of the paperwork package (offered at the O.U.R. Orientations) and also, bringing all the necessary clarifications to the research support requested in the proposal, including placing requisitions in the Cardinal Purch during the month of November. We intend to handle the first half stipend to the O.U.R. winners as a check, at the O.U.R. Awards Ceremony at the end of the fall semester; the second half will be paid in May, upon the submission of a complete Post-Grant report (deadline April 25).

Up to $1,000 will be awarded for research support, which may include supplies, disposable, small equipment, software, analytical services, books, research-related travel or services, etc. Lamar University retains ownership of any equipment (including computers, tablets, electronic equipment or any other item with LU tag) purchased with these funds.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The research support listed in the Budget should be requested by December 1.  Each request should include the exact quotes (with shipping and handling) and the items description from vendor’s webpage. With this info, the O.U.R. office will place a requisition in Cardinal Purch. Please be aware that it takes at least 3 weeks from submitting the request to O.U.R. till Lamar processes it.

• The mentor is requested to enforce the research ethics during his/her mentorship of the whole project.
• The mentor should take care of having the appropriate I.R.B. approval for the project.
• If research is to be done outside of Lamar, then the mentor is requested to bring evidence from a person in charge of the other facility that the proposed research is welcome at that location, and all the safety measures and procedures will be enforced for the protection of our students, mentors, as well as of their equipment and property. In such a case, a written form will be generated by mentors and approved by the Director of O.U.R.
• The mentor agrees that all research support included in the proposal will be requested only in the research support window Nov 1 - Dec 1, unless the Budget Justification of an accepted proposal clearly states that the project requires research support that should be budgeted after January 1 (for e.g. to participate to a conference or workshop, to travel to another place for running an experiment, or to take an interview, etc.) and provides in the Budget Justification the rationale for the need of an extended timeline in receiving research support.
• Only in exceptional situations a request for research support which was NOT included in the Budget Justification of the proposal can be submitted to O.U.R. after January 1, and will need the Director of O.U.R. approval for being processed by the O.U.R. staff.
• Any supplemental need for research support (not included in the Budget Justification of the proposal) should be formally requested by the mentor (not by the student participant) to the Director of O.U.R. A strong rationale in support of the request (with emphasis on the impact to the proposal) should be offered in the request letter.
• If a sponsored student makes the request for supplemental funds, then the mentor should endorse this request and provide the rationale for. The request will be approved for the same dollar amount or less, based upon available O.U.R. funds from unused research support of the O.U.R. grant cohort of that year.
• The mentor will enforce all the necessary strategies and offer all the possible support and guidance to the mentee for his/her successful participation to EXPO, with a talk about his/her O.U.R. sponsored research project. An additional poster presentation at EXPO is also welcome. 

• During the current academic year, the awardee must attend four events sponsored by O.U.R. The students are welcome to join the Lamar Undergraduate Research Association. The members of this forum will identify the best events appropriate for O.U.R. grant recipients, including training for EXPO, which will include learning about how to make posters or give talks. If you are interested in joining the Lamar Undergraduate Research Association, please email: uralamar@gmail.com
• The second O.U.R. stipend will be offered only upon completion of four O.U.R. events. A list of O.U.R. events will be provided at the Kick-off Day.
• This list will NOT include the following MANDATORY O.U.R. events: O.U.R. Grant winners' Orientation, O.U.R. Kick-off Day and EXPO 2022.
• After the completion of the O.U.R. grant, each student winner should be available for at least one panel discussion organized by O.U.R. in the next university year, for motivating the next student cohort to apply for an O.U.R. grant. Failure to have such participation disqualifies the student for receiving a $500 travel support from O.U.R. funds.

After the completion of their work, O.U.R. grant recipients are encouraged to travel and to present to student or professional conferences in one’s discipline, outside Lamar. Travel to present to such conferences requires to fill out a “Request for Funds to Support Student Travel Involving Undergraduate Research/Creative Activity” (OUR_Form_T1_2019) with our office.  Please send the request to travel to the Director of O.U.R. For more information please call at 409-880-8290, visit Chemistry 115B office, or send an email to cristian.bahrim@lamar.edu. If the project presented requires an I.R.B. approval, then this I.R.B. approval should be attached to the travel request. An I.R.B. approval is in the responsibility of the student and mentor(s).

Awardees must submit a post-grant report on the project’s results. All the post-grant reports are due on April 25, 2022, and should include the following pieces:

• One- or two-page narrative which summarizes the work accomplished with O.U.R. support, including graphical results, tables, and a brief paragraph indicating the possible continuation of the project;
• A three-slide PowerPoint presentation designed to be understood by a general non-specialized audience;
• One-page budget justification, with the summary of the expenses.
• A short 10 minutes video presentation with your research experience and results.
• One paragraph of 100 words testimonial about 'his/her research experience' and a couple of professional photos (good resolution photos) taken in the research environment used for running the O.U.R. grant.

This post-grant report should be sent by email to the Director of O.U.R., cc to the mentor(s), and approved by the mentor(s) through an email response to the Director of O.U.R. Based on this report students will receive the second-half stipend of $250

Mandatory presentation at EXPO in mid-April.

If research is to be done outside of Lamar, then the mentor is requested to bring evidence from a person in charge of the other facility that the proposed research is welcome at that location, and all the safety measures and procedures will be enforced for the protection of our students, mentors, as well as of their equipment and property. In such a case, a written form will be generated by mentors and approved by the Director of O.U.R.

Amendments adopted by the Advisory Board Members on Sept. 7, 2022

1. Literature review has to be part of any O.U.R. proposal. Student submitters will indicate the appropriate literature for their projects with emphasis on the significance of the references selected and giving proper citations. It is expected that this should be done with mentor's assistance. The literature review will now be included in scoring two of the items from the rubric:

•  For HASBSEB projects it should be research project/thesis/purpose and configuration/critical thinking (with five points out of 10 points allocated for LR) and organization and neatness of the proposal (with five points out of 10 points allocated for LR).

• For STEM projects it should be research question, hypothesis (with five points out of 10 points allocated for LR) and organization and neatness of the proposal (with five points out of 10 points allocated for LR).

2. We accept double research affiliation of the same student(s) ONLY for O.U.R. projects that are clearly distinctive in goals and purpose. These projects can be for topics from the same field of study. Also, the distinction from the older projects has to be included in the Letter in Support from the mentor(s).

3. We encourage students to continue applying after one research experience, to another research experience, under O.U.R. programs (e.g., a S.U.R.F. winner is encouraged to continue with an O.U.R. grant, or vice-versa) or different programs (e.g., a S.U.R.F. fellow can become a McNair scholar and vice-versa), but we request that the goals and purpose of the new project to be distinctive.

The Office of Undergraduate Research requests to have a clear disclosure of what has been done in a previously sponsored research project and clearly state to what extend the new project is distinctive from the old one(s). The paragraph with such information will not count against the word limit or page limit of the O.U.R. grant proposal, and can be written as a separate paragraph.

4. Students with high performance in their O.U.R. grant proposals, but who do not qualify for a grant will be considered for receiving partial travel support to conferences/student events in the amount of up to $200. This is considered a form of encouragement for students to apply for O.U.R. grants, and it is expected to increase the competitiveness level of the O.U.R. grant proposals.