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University and college computing departments are encouraged to participate in the UR2PhD program as institutional partners.

Institutional partners are schools or departments that aim to amplify the existing research infrastructure at their institution by increasing the number of mentored research opportunities available to undergraduates.

Institutional partners work with UR2PhD program leadership to expand the number of their undergraduates, graduates, and faculty members engaged in research activities in a manner appropriate for their department’s research structure.

Expectations and Support

To ensure that all stakeholders are able to receive and take advantage of the benefits of our program, we expect our partners to commit to:

Designating a local coordinator to manage local recruiting and mentoring efforts
Implementing an advertising, recruitment, and selection process with the goal of engaging a broad pool of undergraduates with limited or no research experience
Placing participants in teams of 2-4 undergraduates and matching them to a research mentor
Supporting undergraduate students with course credit (or pay) for their participation
Ensuring any graduate and undergraduate student participants are attending and actively participating in their respective courses; students must be able to attend the synchronous course sessions
Encouraging participants to complete evaluation efforts
Encouraging participants to continue to engage with UR2PhD (e.g. via workshops)
Promoting opportunities to present their work at local and national venues

* We expect all institutional partners to make a good faith effort to encourage new researchers to participate.

Support

To enable and encourage departments to meet the expectations outlined above, partners will receive:

A stipend paid directly to the local coordinator to help manage and organize undergraduate research activities
Priority access for their students to all three pillars of the UR2PhD program (NOTE: graduate students participating in the mentor training program will be paid $1,000 for completing* the program; this stipend will be paid directly to the student)
Guidance and support in implementing recruiting and selection strategies that result in high engagement from a broad pool of participants
Regular support from the UR2PhD Program Leadership Team in implementing scalable, inclusive undergraduate research programs
Opportunities to connect with and learn from other local coordinators, who are expanding research opportunities at their school

Student participation

Undergraduate students at institutional partner schools must also meet the same eligibility requirements as individual participants.

To participate, students must be a part of a research team of 2-4 undergraduate researchers. They must work with a faculty mentor on a research project (and a graduate student mentor, if applicable). Students must be able to attend the synchronous, virtual course meetings at the same time as their research group.

2025 Funding

In 2023 and 2024, we offered local coordinators at institutional partner schools a one-time $2,000 stipend.

Based on feedback from our partners, we have increased the stipend and are now offering incentives. NOTE: stipends will be assessed and determined on a year-by-year basis based on availability. New institutional partners will be prioritized in future funding.

For 2025, we will be offering stipends as follows:

Number of students who successfully pass the course	Incentive	Total stipend
10	$0	$5,000
11 – 19	$2,500	$7,500
20+	$5,000	$10,000

*Amount is subject to changes, depending on how many new institutional partners are engaged in the year

Goals for Institutional Partners

When UR2PhD was launched, we asked institutional partners to engage at least 20 new undergraduate researchers each term.

In 2025, to be considered an institutional partner, schools must:

Participate in at least one term per calendar year
Have at least 10 undergraduate students successfully complete the Undergraduate Research Training Course in a calendar year

Information for Potential Institutional Partners

Institutional Partner Guide

UR2PhD: Undergraduate Research Methods Course by Computing Research Association’s UR2PhD Program. This work, “UR2PhD Undergraduate Research Methods Course”, is adapted from “Early Research Scholars Program” by Christine Alvarado, UC San Diego, used under CC BY 4.0. “UR2PhD Undergraduate Research Scholars” is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the Computing Research Association’s UR2PhD Program and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

UR2PhD: Graduate Student Mentor Training Course by Computing Research Association’s UR2PhD Program is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International