Program Overview

In order to achieve the objectives of King Saud University, the Deanship of Scientific Research has taken pioneer measures and steps to encourage and integrate undergraduate students at King Saud University into the scientific research process by launching the Undergraduate Research Support Program (URSP) since 1435 – 1436 AH (2014 – 2015 AD) aiming to attract and engage the undergraduates in the process of scientific research and to develop their research skills and values in order to raise a generation of qualified researchers in various scientific fields.

The program seeks to support the best and most qualified undergraduate research proposals in different fields and specialties that undergo competitive and rigorous evaluation process to select the promising and feasible ones that are intended to be implemented and completed within one year. Supported proposals are implemented under the supervision of faculty members in the university in order to help providing the undergraduate researchers with research experience and to enhance their communication and to strengthen their research continuity with faculty members. The program supports research projects submitted by undergraduate students at King Saud University including graduation-research projects, internship-research projects, and course-research projects. Furthermore, the program allocates a hundred (100) research grants to support research projects submitted by undergraduate students of the “Distinguished and Talented Students’ Program”.

Moreover, selected research projects are supported financially through payment of the expenses spent during the implementation of the research project. The program also promotes scientific publication by providing a monetary reward to support research publications. The reward is, consequently, specified according to the journal index category among which include Web of Science- ISI journals, journals listed in global databases, and journals approved by the Scientific Council at King Saud University. In addition, the program provides a financial students’ reward linked to their research publication.

The program encourages undergraduate researchers to present their work in scientific conferences, local or international, as it offers a monetary incentive for their conference participation. In addition, the program promotes the students’ scientific experience by enhancing the students’ competitive nature to obtain scientific prizes by providing an additional monetary award bonus for those undergraduates who win a scientific award while participating in any recognized scientific conference.

Additionally, the program provides the opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students in various disciplines at King Saud University to participate as a student research assistant in any of the research projects submitted to the Undergraduate Research Support Program or to any other programs related to the Deanship of Scientific Research. This initiative has been introduced to improve students’ research skills and to enhance their opportunity to participate in the research process that enrich their curriculum vitae and scientific publications. The program provides the participants with a certificate documenting their research training experience in addition to their inclusion in the authorship or in the acknowledgement of the published research paper according to the ethical participation in the research work with a written agreement that is supervised by the Program Management.

The program offers an online basic research training course for undergraduates enrolled in the program. Additionally, it coordinates students with several centers for laboratory training in any specialized scientific research technique. The program has also collaborated to provide the opportunity for both undergraduates and graduates to undergo field training upon application in several disciplines (such as translation, law, graphics design, administrative and technical affairs, computer and electronics, IT support, media, public relations, and marketing fields). Training can be performed in any of the departments that belongs to the Deanship of Scientific Research in order to provide practical experience and to improve training skills for applicants that prepare them for the Saudi labor market.

The program, additionally, holds an annual meeting for undergraduate students participating in the program that provides them with an opportunity to present their research outputs and to honor the excellent students and publishers, thereby, further displaying the program’s keenness to highlight the student’s research activities.

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