Awards and Funding

Are you an undergraduate student interested in gaining research experience in an academic setting that compliments your current studies?

NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA) are designed to stimulate interest in research in the areas of natural sciences and engineering in an effort to encourage students to partake in graduate studies and pursue a research career in these fields.

For information on the financial amounts of the NSERC USRA, please see UBC's NSERC USRA page.

Students do not need to be in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) to work with an ECE professor. ECE students, in turn, may also hold an award in another department or university, if you find a faculty member who is interested in supervising you.

• Be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
• Be registered in a bachelor's degree program at an eligible university (full-time or part-time) in at least one of the two terms immediately previous to holding the award. For the purposes of this document, the terms of an academic year are: Summer (May to August), Fall (September to December), Winter (January to April). Registration in either one of the two summer sessions will count as registration in that term.
• Have obtained, over the previous years of study, a cumulative B- (68%) average or above (note that the competitive average is generally above 80%).
• At the time of your award, have completed all the course requirements of at least the first year of university study (or two academic terms) of your bachelor's degree.
• Not have started a graduate studies program in the natural sciences or engineering.

In addition:

• If you already hold a bachelor's degree and are studying toward a second bachelor's degree, you may still apply to this program.
• You may hold only one USRA per fiscal year (April 1 to March 31) and only one industrial USRA per fiscal year.
• You may hold a maximum of three USRAs throughout your university career.
• If you are a graduating student , you are eligible to hold an USRA as long as you were registered in at least one of the two previous terms before holding the award, have not started a program of graduate studies and have met all other eligibility requirements of the program.
• You must be engaged, on a full-time basis for a minimum of 16 consecutive weeks , in research and development activities in the natural sciences or engineering during the tenure of the award.
  

A list of projects offered by ECE faculty members can be found here:

List of Projects

The presented projects are not exhaustive. You are encouraged to contact faculty members you are interested working with also for possible other projects.