What is Undergraduate Research?

The Office of Undergraduate Research (UGR)

The Office of Undergraduate Research (UGR), a division of Student and Academic Life, is dedicated to providing coordination, leadership, and support for the many programs at the University of Kentucky designed to promote undergraduate research, scholarship, and creativity. The Office of UGR is the starting point for any undergraduate student desiring to include faculty-mentored research in their undergraduate experience. A major service orchestrated by The Office of Undergraduate Research is the partnering of undergraduate protégés with faculty mentors to create a formalized, meaningful research experience.

 

Vision

In alignment with the Strategic Plan of the University of Kentucky, with the expectations of a Carnegie-designated Research-1 institution (in 2014, changed to “RU/VH”, or Research Universities with Very High research activity), and in alignment with feedback from faculty, staff and students, the Vision of the Office of Undergraduate Research is to:

1) Increase and support the partnerships of undergraduate students with talented, dedicated, and enthusiastic faculty mentors to conduct high quality, productive, and mutually career-supporting research;

2) Provide support to each student in a customized manner, meeting each student where they are, then building upon their skills, to create capable and curious researchers, able to meet the ever-changing external demands of an information-based, global workplace, as well as to meet their own internal demands for personal growth and life satisfaction through inquiry and exploration;

3) Provide an increasing number and heightened quality of opportunities for students to present the results of their research in written (books, manuscripts, articles), oral (conference presentations, keynotes, one-on-one), visual (graphic media, sculpture, photography, multimedia presentations), and digital methods (blogs, performances, webpages);

4) Procure and sustain the resources needed to meet the above visions for the office.