NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards
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Faculty members with active NSERC research grants may apply for the NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) program. If accepted, you will receive a wage subsidy of $4,500 to hire an eligible student to work on research and development in your lab.
Program goals
- To stimulate student interest in natural sciences and engineering
- To provide career-related work experience for the award recipients/students
- To provide students with financial support
NSERC encourages a 50% participation rate for female students. And to encourage aboriginal students to pursue graduate studies and research careers in the natural sciences and engineering, awards to aboriginal students are considered in addition to UBC's quota.
Eligibility
Project supervisors must:
- Be faculty members who hold active NSERC research grants at the time of application or when the student holds the award.
- Be either the principal investigator or co-investigator of the grant.
Students must:
- Be Canadian citizens or permanent residents.
- Be registered (at the time of application) in a bachelor's degree program (full time or part time).
- Have obtained, over the previous years of study, at least a B- (68%) average.
- Have completed (at the time they hold the award) all the course requirements of at least the first year of university study (or two academic terms) toward a bachelor's degree.
- Not have started a graduate studies program in the natural sciences and engineering.
UBC students may qualify for USRAs in industry or apply to work with supervisors at other universities. UBC faculty members can hire students from other universities, as long as they meet all eligibility requirements.
Graduating students are eligible for the award during the term immediately following the completion of their undergraduate program requirements, as long as they have not started graduate studies.
Students are not eligible for a USRA if they are currently enrolled in an undergraduate professional degree in the health sciences (e.g., MD, DDS, BScN) or hold higher degrees in the natural sciences or engineering.
Award conditions
Students must be engaged in research and development activities on a full-time basis (35 hours a week) during the tenure of the award (a minimum of 16 consecutive weeks). Students may hold:
- Only one USRA per fiscal year (April 1 to March 31).
- A maximum of three USRAs throughout their university career.
All wages are paid out of the project supervisor's account.
- The minimum pay is $5,625 over 16 weeks.
- The wage subsidy will be reimbursed to the supervisor's account two to three months after the tenure is complete.
- Travel allowances for non-UBC students who work with UBC NSERC grant holders can also be reimbursed.
Reimbursements
Project supervisors will only receive funding if their student works:
- full time for a minimum of 16 consecutive weeks; and
- is paid a minimum of $5,625.
In addition, supervisors are required to fund benefits amounting to approximately 7% of the monthly wage.
Please note that $5,625 is the minimum for the period. It is important that the award winners are appropriately paid for the work they are doing.
Travel reimbursements
Since students from other universities are eligible for USRA awards at UBC, NSERC will reimburse the travel expenses that these students incur. The maximum allowance is equivalent to economy airfare between the home cities of the two universities.
In addition:
- NSERC will pay the return travel costs only if the actual period of tenure is 12 weeks or more.
- NSERC will not provide a travel allowance for the student's spouse or children.
- This allowance is not designed to offset the student's daily commuting costs to and from the host university.
- NSERC will provide an allowance for ground transportation costs to and from the student's residence and their point of departure (e.g., airport, train station, bus station). Receipts must be provided.
- NSERC will not provide an allowance for the cost of transporting excess baggage or removing household effects.
- Frequent flyer points will not be reimbursed.
- NSERC will not reimburse travel expenses to and from field research locations other than the UBC campus.
Procedures
- The faculty/department collects all eligible travel receipts from the student and reimburses the student first by completing a travel requisition form.
- All copies of the travel receipts and a copy of the travel requisition form must be forwarded to Career Services.
- Career Services will claim these expenses from NSERC and, in turn, reimburse the faculties/departments. Allow a few months for processing time.
Application process
The NSERC USRA program will be advertised and coordinated through faculty offices and by the faculty coordinators. Each faculty will establish procedures for identifying and ranking applicants and setting deadlines.
To apply, both project supervisors and students must complete and submit an NSERC USRA application, Form 202
You must complete the online Form 202 part II by selecting System Login. If you are a first time user, select Register.
Here are instructions on how to complete the form.
A few things to remember:
If you have an eligible student that you wish to work with, you will need their reference number before filling out Form 202 part II. - Once completed, the forms (part I and part II) have to be printed out and submitted to your Department / Faculty Coordinator for review.
- Students also need to upload, with their application form, a copy of their official transcripts.
- After both forms are completed and hardcopies are submitted to the Department/Faculty Coordinator, you will need to log into your NSERC application and ‘Submit to LO’.
- NSERC will not accept hardcopy forms.
Project supervisors may contact students directly but are encouraged to post their positions with their faculty office or on UBC CareersOnline (free of charge).
Because there are a limited number of awards allocated to UBC, faculty coordinators have been asked to rank their projects and to create a contingency list of projects in case higher-ranked projects are withdrawn.
The deadlines for submission of all application forms are set at the faculty level.
Career Services will review and confirm all applications in April. In
Using a student appointment form and a special code, you will appoint students. Career Services will then email you detailed instructions.
Faculty coordinators
| Faculty | Deadline for summer USRAs | Faculty coordinator/ administrator |
|---|---|---|
| Applied Science |
|
|
| Arts | March 6, 201 |
Darrin Lehman |
| Education | March 9, 201 |
Fran Harrison |
| Forestry | March 2, 201 |
Dan Naidu |
| College for Interdisciplinary Studies | March |
Linda Leathley |
| Land & Food Systems | March |
Samantha Turner |
| Medicine | March |
Debbie Giaschi |
| Sauder School of Business | March |
Annie Ko |
Science coordinators
| Department | Deadline for summer USRAs | Coordinator/administrator |
|---|---|---|
| Botany | February 2 |
Veronica Oxtoby |
| Chemistry | February 1 |
|
| Computer Science | February 2 |
Giuliana Villegas |
| Earth and Ocean Sciences | March |
Carol Leven |
| Math | February |
Verni Brown |
| Microbiology and Immunology | March |
William Ramey |
| Physics and Astronomy | January |
|
| Statistics | March |
Andrea Sollberger |
| Zoology | February 2 |
Alice Liou |
Questions about NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards?
Contact your faculty coordinator if you have further questions. As a second resource, you can also contact:
604.822.
