Summer Studentships

UCL Engineering offers several summer studentship programmes:

  • Teaching and Learning Support Studentship
  • Undergraduate Research Opportunities Scheme, and
All offer a stipend for students to pursue a project developed in collaboration with an academic over a number of weeks in the summer. Projects can be pieces of research, videos to help in teaching, or developing new equipment. Application for all programmes is open now, and closes on March 31st 2013.

Teaching and Learning Support Studentship

These grants are intended to allow individual academics to work with (paid) undergraduate or postgraduate students to develop e-learning content or activities for use in Engineering courses. Examples of the types of project considered include:

  • Converting paper based problems to moodle quizzes or similar.
  • Creating interactive e-books or i-books from course material.
  • Developing videos, either as a substitute for live lectures or as introductory material.
  • Developing support material for student laboratories.

This list is not prescriptive, and all proposals will be considered. Staff and students may discuss a project together, or may send ideas separately to be matched with an appropriate partner.

The studentship will pay £220 per week for up to 8 weeks, typically starting from the beginning of July. Training will be provided appropriate to the requirements of the project.

 

Submission instructions:

Students should send their CV, a maximum of two pages long, including academic grades and skills appropriate to develop teaching materials (i.e. subjects studied, design, coding experience etc.) to Dani Galloway.

Staff wishing to supervise a student should send a one page description of the project proposed, including details of any innovative aspects and the improvements it will bring to their teaching, to Dani Galloway also.

If staff and students have already discussed a project this should be made clear in both applications.

The selection committee will be chaired by Dr John Mitchell, who can be contacted for further details.

Deadline for submissions is the 31st of March 2013.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities Scheme

To encourage the best of our undergraduates to consider a career in R&D, and see the excitement of working at the leading edge in research, UCL Engineering will support up to 10 vacation studentships for students who have completed at least two years of an undergraduate degree in UCL, but are not in their final year. Dependent on circumstances, research groups may be required to match the funds given by the faculty to make up the full scholarship value.  The scheme is open to the students from MAPS or Engineering Sciences Faculties.

Details of the scheme:

  1. The UROS Committee (comprising 4 academics from FES departments) will annually invite nominations and proposals, to be received by the 31st of March.
  2. The nominated submissions will include a CV from the student and a project description from the supervisor.
  3. The UROS Committee will select up to 10 of the best proposals/students and notify the selected participants by the end of May.
  4. The value of the studentship will be up to £2,000 (for up to 12 weeks).
  5. The UROS Committee will ask for a two-page report from the student and a brief report from the supervisor.  A half a day poster display (or presentation day – to be confirmed) will be held in FES to enable the judgement of the supported projects. An award of £250 will be made for the best project each year.  The report must be submitted by 30th September of each year.

Submission instructions:

Students should send their CV (a maximum of two pages long, to include
academic grades) and up to 400-word (maximum 1 page of A4) description
of the proposed research project to Dani Galloway. This should contain
a description of the problem, existing solutions and their shortcomings, and a description of the proposed solution, why it is better and what will be done during the UROS project including a brief methodology and explanation of techniques.
The supervisor should separately send to Ms Galloway a 100 word reference describing the student’s suitability for the project and the experience they will get during the UROS period.

Deadline for submissions is the 31st of March 2013.

The UROS Committee will be chaired by Professor Polina Bayvel, Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, who can be contacted for further details.

EPSRC Vacation Bursaries

UCL participates in the EPSRC vacation bursary scheme. Awards are normally calculated to reflect the recommended weekly stipend and consumables allowance, and pay a maximum stipend of £220 a week.

Proposal Criteria

  1. The proposed project must be within the EPSRC funding remit.
  2. The student must be enrolled on a first UCL undergraduate degree programme within the EPSRC funding remit, and should not be in their first or final year of study.
  3. Projects must have a clearly defined outcome and may not form part of a student’s degree programme. Proposers should think in terms of the bursary providing the student with opportunities to explore and obtain research experience.
  4. The student must meet the EPSRC eligibility criteria by the end of their degree.
  5. Proposals must be submitted by named UCL academic staff members.

Proposals will be assessed against the: (a) technical quality of the proposed project; (b) quality of the experience that will be offered to the student; (c) academic potential of the student.

For more details and to apply online, visit the EPSRC Vacation Bursary Scheme Page.

Deadline for submissions is the 31st of March 2013.