The NSERC USRA awards provide stipends to undergraduate students with high academic standings for pursuing research supervised by a professor over the
summer months. They are intended to be supplemented with funds from the
professor's grant (so, the professor must be an NSERC grant holder). The
awards are generally intended for students currently in their second, third,
and fourth year, respectively. However, in exceptional cases, a first year student may apply, keeping in
mind that one may receive this award a maximum of three times. If a supervisor submits more than two applications, priority will normally be
given to the top two applicants for that supervisor.
To be eligible for these awards, a student:
- must be a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant at the time of
application;
- must be registered as a full time student at the time of the application;
- must have completed at least two academic terms of a bachelor's degree program by the time the award is taken up;
- must have attained a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 in the program up to the time of application. (The awards are given out on a competitive
basis, so in practice a higher GPA will be needed).
In the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, the internal
rankings are based on the following criteria:
- the student's GPA over the previous three semesters;
- research proposal; (Is it focused, realistic, non-trivial, but not too
ambitious either?)
- strength of the academic program. (How did the student perform in courses
related to the proposed research? How challenging were the courses?)
Applications should be filled out
using NSERC's on-line system.
Here are details about the procedure:
- The student fills out Form 202, Part I.
- The proposed supervisor then fills out Form 202, Part II, using the reference number from Part I and his/her
own research grant application number. (Be sure to select a research code from
the online list.)
- The student needs to provide an official up-to-date transcript of his/her
grades, but no letter of reference is required.
- The complete application, with the word "verified" in the lower right-hand
corner, should be submitted to CAB 632 by mid-January.
Please, note the following:
- The number of awards allocated to a department is proportional to the
total number of research dollars that department receives from NSERC. (As
research grants in mathematics - especially pure mathematics - tend to be
relatively small, this means that our department receives relatively few
awards.)
- If a department has more applicants than awards it has been allocated, the
department's interal ranking is followed until the number of awards
allocated to that department has been reached.
- Some departments do not fill their allocation of awards (in 2002, for
instance, there were about 20 such "surplus" awards). If there are "surplus"
awards, then they are awarded strictly on the basis of GPA from the
pool of applicants from all departments that have not yet been selected
for an award.