Institutional partners are universities that are committed to scaling undergraduate research.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis for the spring term.

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 and diversify the existing research infrastructure at their institution by increasing the number of research opportunities available to women and gender-marginalized undergraduates, especially those from marginalized races and ethnicities. 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 ≥ 80% of the new researchers identifying as women or other gender-marginalized identities
Recruiting new researchers during the program; researchers should be placed in teams of 2-4 undergraduates that are willing and able to attend the same synchronous course sessions.
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
Ensuring undergraduate students present their work at an on-campus, regional or national venue
Encouraging undergraduates to participate in bridge program activities (i.e. workshops) and encouraging graduate mentors to continue to check-in with their mentees after the research experience

**We expect all institutional partners to make a good faith effort to include and encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds to participate in the program. That said, we understand that for some institutions, engaging 20 new researchers is difficult. We are willing to discuss alternative setups for institutions who share similar goals, but may find these goals unattainable. We especially want to encourage participation from institutions that serve large populations of underrepresented students.

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 a high participation percentage of women and other gender-marginalized students in computing, including those from marginalized races and ethnicities
Regular, personalized support from experts in implementing scalable, inclusive undergraduate research programs

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 women and gender-marginalized students who successfully pass the course	Incentive	Total stipend
6 – 9	$0	$5,000
10 – 19	$2,500	$7,500
20+	$5,000	$10,000

*Amount is subject to changes, depending on how many 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, with ~80% of those students identifying as women or gender-marginalized students, and a disproportionate number of those students identifying as Black, Latina, and/or Native American/Indigenous.

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

Participate in at least one term per calendar year
Have at least 6-9 women or gender marginalized undergraduate students successfully complete the Undergraduate Research Training Course in a calendar year

The UR2PhD team expects all partners to strive to engage students from underrepresented communities. The following are goals for the program:

80% of participants should be women or gender-marginalized students
At least 25% of participants should be from underrepresented backgrounds (e.g. Black, Latinx, and/or Native American / Indigenous)

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