SURE Program

Overview

The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) is a free 9-week program that provides supplementary infrastructure to undergraduate students already conducting research and creative work at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM) during the summer. SURE provides the following:

2019 SURE Participants remove invasive plants in the native Hawaiian section of Lyon Arboretum

Above: 2019 SURE participants remove invasive plants in the native Hawaiian plant section at Lyon Arboretum.

Cohort of undergraduate peers

Weekly professional development modules

SURE Symposium

Faculty Mentoring Grant to support eligible* student projects
Note that SURE does not provide undergraduate students with research/creative work projects or positions, or faculty mentors.

SURE offers professional development modules for students to build additional professional and academic skills outside of their research and creative work projects. Past topics include, but are not limited to how to identify and apply to graduate school, and how to prepare for oral and poster presentations. UHM faculty and administrative staff organize and facilitate these events, eliminating the need for mentors to run their own modules. This provides faculty more time to focus on mentoring student projects.

The program also provides students with a supportive cohort of peers. Most students conducting research and creative work at UHM in the summer may be working independently or in small groups, and therefore may feel isolated in their respective work spaces. Students in this situation are not benefiting from the cohort structure that other organized summer research programs offer (e.g. NSF-REU site programs). The SURE program serves as a central gathering place where students can meet each other and confer on the challenges, solutions, and rewards they experience when working on their project.

The SURE Symposium provides an end-of-summer venue for undergraduate students to present their research and creative work. It is free and open to students in all disciplines. Learn more on the SURE Symposium page.

To increase undergraduate student participation in research and creative work in the summer, UROP is awarding up to $100,000 for the Faculty Mentoring Grant. The request for proposals opens from February 1 – March 1. UROP encourages applications from all disciplines, and is particularly interested in receiving applications from non-STEM fields and from early-career (tenure-track, non-tenured) faculty in any discipline.

Note that the Faculty Mentoring Grant has specific eligibility requirements* independent of SURE eligibility requirements. Learn more on the Faculty Mentoring Grant page. 

Notes

* See the “Eligibility” tab on the Faculty Mentoring Grant page for more information on specific requirements to apply for the Faculty Mentoring Grant.

° UHM faculty mentors do not need to meet any eligibility requirements to have students participate in SURE.

Contact Information

Email any questions or comments to urop@hawaii.edu

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