An AYURA submission is envisioned as a collaborative effort between the undergraduate student and the WashU faculty mentor, with the student completing the majority of the work and the faculty mentor providing input and final approval.

Overview

1. A basic eligibility check (e.g., are you a senior?) and a student information form (e.g., major, field of research, whether the project involves human subjects or travel)
2. A nomination form completed by your primary WashU faculty mentor (a second nomination is expected only for applicants who have two co-mentors involved with their research project)
3. A research proposal (4-5 pages, double-spaced)
4. A project timeline
5. An itemized budget and budget justification
6. A brief description of your alternate research plans in the event of unforeseeable circumstances

Detailed Descriptions of Submission Components

Primary WashU Faculty Mentor Nomination

Awards are made on the basis of the faculty nomination. Faculty mentors must complete a nomination form that comprises the short answer questions below. Traditional letters of recommendation will not fulfill the nomination requirement. 

1. Disciplinary Grounding: Discuss how the proposed project builds on existing work in the relevant field of inquiry. What disciplinary gap, limitation or debate might be addressed through this project? What new knowledge, insights, tools, community impact, etc. might be generated?
2. Feasibility: Address whether the project scope and timeline are feasible and appropriate for addressing the line of inquiry and synthesizing findings by applicable deadlines. What steps has the student taken to refine their research question, identify potential challenges and develop contingency plans to ensure meaningful progress towards their project goals?
3. Student Preparation: Describe the student's capacity and preparedness to undertake the proposed methodological approach or creative process. What specific experiences or indicators demonstrate the student's readiness to complete this culminating work?
4. Student Development: Describe the importance of the proposed research or creative activities to the student’s academic, personal and professional development and progression.
5. Mentoring: Briefly outline your role in the project and how you hope to support the student in reaching project objectives.  

Students with a second faculty mentor (WashU or external) engaging with their research project should also request a nomination from their co-mentor. Nominations are due by the same deadlines as student materials (fall-start: 10/11/26; spring-start: 3/14/27; summer-start: 5/30/27).

Research Proposal

Please upload a 4-5 page double-spaced proposal (not including works cited). The proposal should be developed in collaboration with your mentor and receive their final approval. AYURA submissions will be evaluated on the feasibility and necessity of the proposed activities, as well as the disciplinary grounding and personal impact of the inquiry-based project. Below we outline the expectations for a successful AYURA research or creative proposal, which must address ALL of the following to be considered for funding: 

• Line of inquiry: Clearly state your research question(s), hypothesis or creative objective(s) in bold lettering. Students with multiple questions or objectives are strongly encouraged to highlight a core line of inquiry to help us understand the project's scope and feasibility, given project deadlines (e.g., thesis filing).
• Background and significance: Situate the research question(s) or creative objective(s) within the broader disciplinary context. Explain previous studies, concepts, or theoretical or critical frameworks that inform your understanding of the problem, offer context for your approach, or provide a foundation for your methodology. Explicitly link these references to your research question or creative objective and describe what new knowledge, perspective or method your work would contribute and why it matters in the field or broader community.
• Methods: Explain to a non-expert, academic audience (e.g., scholars from a completely different discipline) your methodological approach or creative process and your specific responsibilities. Describe the rationale behind each part of the process and how it addresses your research question or creative objective. Outline what you will measure, examine or create and how you will gather and analyze the data, texts, artifacts or other materials. Include the scope of your work (e.g., number of interviews, documents or samples to be analyzed) and specify how you will interpret your findings (e.g., the methods or criteria you will apply).
• Findings and implications: Describe what research results, creative outputs, knowledge, insights or tools you expect to generate through the proposed activities. Discuss the anticipated consequences of those outcomes, explaining potential applications of the results, next steps for this line of inquiry, community impact of the project, etc.
• Prior experience: Describe your prior exposure to or experience with the methodological approach and techniques required for execution of the proposed project (e.g., preliminary research, coursework, etc.) or how you will gain these skills. Identify any additional training, resources or feedback you may need to independently implement the proposed research or creative activities.
• Importance for the student: Identify the academic, personal, and/or professional goals that the proposed project will advance. Specify how the faculty-mentored project will uniquely contribute to your development of specific academic, personal, and professional competencies.   

Project Timeline

Provide a timeline that outlines the work you will execute to achieve project outcomes and when it will be carried out. This document should help demonstrate the feasibility of the project, depicting how you will complete the proposed activities and synthesize your findings or output (e.g., for presentation at the symposium) within an appropriate and reasonable time frame. Your timeline must include these elements: 

• Key preparatory, training and methodological steps of the project
• Milestones and deliverables (i.e., what you will achieve or produce, such as a thesis draft)
• Critical communication points with your mentor (e.g., to obtain feedback) 
• Departmental deadlines for your thesis, capstone or other culminating work

The timeline may outline activities on a week-to-week basis, or it may be less fine-grained for projects spanning many months. A strong timeline will illustrate that you have considered potential challenges and developed contingency plans to ensure meaningful progress towards your project's goals. 

Itemized Budget and Budget Justification

Provide an itemized budget (i.e., specific items and quantity) of the resources needed to execute the proproposed activities (see Creating a Budget). A justification must accompany each proposed cost that discusses why the items are essential to the methodology and goals of the work, explaining why other approaches or resources will not suffice to address the line of inquiry. Overall, you must convey that the proposed costs are reasonable and necessary to accomplish the project objective(s). Insufficient budget justification may result in no or partial funding. Describe how each cost was estimated, addressing these additional considerations when applicable:  

• Disclose any other sources of funding for the overall project, such as mentor matches or fellowships, including stipends or travel funds to support the student during the conduct of the project
• How the requested items/resources - or comparable alternatives - are otherwise unavailable through WashU (mentor, department, library, etc.) or other avenues at no or lower cost (e.g. renting equipment) (see Creating a Budget for a non-exhaustive list of WashU resources)
• For projects involving research subject incentives, a rationale for the number of paid subjects required and the proposed compensation rate

Please note that the AYURA program generally does not fund the following:

• The costs of non-consumable goods (i.e., reusable equipment like laptops or suitcases); however, we will consider such items under $100 with strong justification.
• Expenses incurred before award approval
• Student wages/stipends. Room and board will only be funded as part of a travel-based research proposals.

Funds will be disbursed directly to the student as an award and is considered taxable income. Due to restrictions on the AYURA funding source, awards cannot be disbursed to the faculty mentor or department. You will be asked to submit itemized receipts to the Office of Undergraduate Research to verify expenses. For international students, the tax burden can be substantial (up to 30%) and taken upfront; effectively, you’ll only be able to use part of the award towards your project. Taxes are not an allowable budget item.