Supervising Faculty

UROP is open for student application in Fall, Spring and Summer. Students work with a supervising faculty member on a research project offered by the faculty, or they may design their own research project with the consent of the faculty member assigned to supervise them.

 

All full-time tenure-track faculty members at HKUST are welcome to become a UROP supervisor. We will also consider applications from other categories of academic staff (e.g. non-tenure-track faculty members) on a case-by-case basis. These applications require endorsement by the Department Head (DH). Please send the request with DH’s endorsement to our office (urop@ust.hk). DH’s endorsement should include the following:

1) Whether there are sufficient resources given to this non-tenure-track faculty from the corresponding unit (department/research center/institute/laboratory) (e.g., laboratory space and computing resources), if the project requires,

2) Whether the appointment period of this non-tenure-track faculty will completely cover the semester for the UROP supervision,

3) End of effective date of this endorsement (if applicable), and

4) Other supporting materials (if applicable).

Short-term visiting appointments with a period of less than 1 year, any appointments with a period not completely covering the supervision period, post-doctoral fellows, instructional assistants, teaching associates, administrative staff, and students, etc. are not eligible to supervise UROP projects.

 

To submit research project(s), please go to the UROP Online System (log-in with your ITSC account name and password) to fill in the project details. Please refer to the UROP Schedule for the upcoming project submission period, and check out the System Guidebook for more information on how to manage your UROP projects and students.

General Guidelines

It is vital to any research project that students are provided with ample attention, guidance and quality supervision. Accordingly, each UROP supervising faculty member is permitted to supervise a maximum of five UROP projects and no more than 10 UROP students for UROP1000 / 1100 / 2100 / 3100 / 4100 combined in any single term, as the main supervisor and co-supervisor. The quota will be kept for both the regular UROP and UROP 3200 combined. 

 

Effective from Spring 2021-22, a new faculty member can only supervise one project and two students at most during their first year with the university. They may send request to the UROP Office for supervising more than two students, subject to the approval by the UROP Advisory Board. Faculty members who are within their first-year employment are ineligible to supervise UROP 3200 projects.

 

Furthermore, supervising faculty members must arrange a minimum of one contact hour per week (preferably face-to-face) for each project with student enrollment. If two or more students are enrolled in a project, then group meetings are permitted. Upon program completion, supervising faculty members must review the student reports and submit their grades through the UROP Online System.

 

To ensure sufficient in-person communication between supervisors and students, effective from Summer 2021-22, supervising faculty members are required to be physically on the HKUST (Clear Water Bay) campus for UROP supervision and application for UROP Support Grant. Faculty members taking no-pay leave or professional leave are not eligible to supervise UROP projects. 
 

To ensure that the research projects offered under UROP are in compliance with the University standards and regulations, starting from Fall 2023-24, UROP faculty supervisors will be required to make a proper declaration on ethics and safety in the UROP Online System. The declaration process will be conducted in two phases. 

In Phase 1, UROP supervisors with student enrollment will be required to make the required declaration on ethics and safety in the UROP Online System while submitting grades during the grade submission period.
In Phase 2, all supervisors will be required to declare and input a valid tick@lab protocol number (if applicable) for all of their open projects. Phase 2 will start in Fall 2024-25, and supervisors must declare their projects by 26 Aug 2025.

 

UROP participants are expected to fulfil the CGA requirement of 3.0 (for UROP 1000) or 3.3 (for UROP 1100). Effective from Summer 2023-24, under exceptional circumstances, if supervisors identify any students exhibiting strong research potentials and agree to supervise, a strong justification with substantial grounds must be submitted to the UROP Office to support the student’s application. Such justification should be at least one page long and should demonstrate student’s research competencies, including but not limited to:

• Student’s achievement of related awards, contests and/or other activities
• Student’s previous research experience and/or research skills
• Student’s academic performance in related course(s) and/or coursework

Students should upload the supporting letter together with the CV when submitting their applications.

Please note that students are still required to fulfill the semester requirement. The UROP Office reserves the right of final decision on the eligibility of any students under exceptional consideration. 

Feedback from UROP Students

The UROP Office has been collecting students’ feedback in UROP courses via Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ). Here are some areas students considered crucial in their UROP experience:

• Regular meetings (ample communication) with supervisors throughout the semester
• Hands-on work/lab opportunities provided
• Supervisors’ patience in answering their questions
• Supervisors’ guidance on conducting research
   

UROP Faculty Award

To encourage high-quality research, UROP supervising faculty members are welcome to nominate their students who exhibit excellent research performance to receive the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Award (UROP Award)(formerly known as Mr. Armin and Mrs. Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award). The supervising team of the winning students will be presented with the UROP Faculty Research Award of HK$20,000 research fund. Please stay tuned to the UROP Office’s email announcement regarding the nomination details.

 

UROP Support Grant

This funding scheme aims to provide financial support to help enhance the continuous development of an existing UROP project, and to encourage a sustained UROP experience for undergraduate students. It is offered every Fall, Spring and Summer by email announcement from the UROP Office. The application should be jointly submitted by an enrolled UROP undergraduate student and a faculty supervisor. Each supervisor is eligible to receive a support grant of up to HK$30,000 per project, and no more than two awarded grants per academic year.

 

In response to the outbreak of COVID-19, supervisors are reminded to follow the University’s relevant policy on the requirement of students’ physical presence on campus during the UROP.

 

List of awarded projects:

2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25

 

UROP Collaboration Fund (Currently Suspended)

This funding scheme is to provide funding support for initiatives aiming to enhance undergraduate research through collaboration with the UROP. The collaboration should be a joint effort to encourage undergraduate students from all disciplines to engage in academic research. The scheme is open for applications once per year and each approved application will be capped at HK$100,000. For details, please refer to the Scheme Notes here.

 

List of awarded projects:

2019 

Please stay tuned to the UROP Office’s email announcement regarding the application details for both funding schemes. For the application form, please go to the "Download Area". 

 

The differences between the UROP Support Grant and the UROP Collaboration Fund are listed in the table below:

	UROP Support Grant	UROP Collaboration Fund
Objective	To provide additional fund to help enhance the continuous development of an existing UROP project, and to encourage a long-term UROP experience for undergraduate students.	To provide funding support to faculty members for developing a new multi-semester or multi-year program, or enriching an existing program of that nature, that engages a relatively large number of undergraduate students in research experience, preferably with collaborative components (e.g., international collaboration, collaboration with NGOs).
Eligibility	Existing UROP supervisors with at least one student who has completed UROP1000 under a closely related project or UROP1100 or above under the same project.	All full-time faculty members
Funding Scope	All research-related expenses excluding salaries, travel or food. In general, membership/publication fees, journals/books for referencing are not supported. Fundable items include equipment, consumables, survey participant fees/incentives etc.	All research-related expenses excluding salaries or food.  Travel expenses can only be used by the participating undergraduate students in the project.
Funding Limit	Up to HK$30,000 per project and no more than two awarded grants per academic year.	Up to HK$100,000 for each approved application and no more than one awarded grant per academic year.
Funding Period	The funding is valid for one year since the start date of the awarded semester and non-extendable unless the same project is awarded again.	The project should last for multiple semesters over up to two years and is renewable upon approval by the UROP Office.
Application Requirement	Application should be jointly submitted by an undergraduate student and the corresponding faculty supervisor.	Application should be submitted by the lead HKUST faculty member, with a support letter from the collaborating party.