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Faculty Mentors
The URECA undergraduate research programme provides a unique opportunity for 2nd / 3rd year undergraduates to experience research first-hand under the supervision of faculty for a period of 11-month (August to June). Hence, URECA programme would not be possible without the participation of faculty.
Becoming URECA supervisor is an opportunity for NTU/NIE faculty to engage high-achieving undergraduates from any school and gain significant contributions towards their research work. Supervising undergraduates from different academic disciplines brings a different perspective and sometimes intriguing and mind provoking to their research initiatives.
URECA programme creates seamless transition and confidence for undergraduates to pursue a higher degree (Master or PhD) by research under their supervisors.
Prior to registering URECA eligible students:
- Assess your student’s interests, knowledge, and abilities including their academic and extra-curricular commitments.
- Communicate your expectations to interested URECA eligible students.
- Assess the suitability of the student(s) for the project.
- Deregister your URECA student if he/she wishes to drop out from URECA within the Add/Drop period (30 Sept).
URECA supervision includes but not limited to the following:
- Communicate your expectations for the research project and what you expect of your URECA student in terms of responsibilities and time commitments.
- Orient your URECA student to the research project e.g. through background readings, etc.
- Explain to your URECA student the Health and Safety procedures that student must strictly follow and request your student to undergo Health and Safety training if required, prior to assigning research laboratory work.
- Assign your URECA student to work within specific laboratory or team, if applicable.
- Develop a schedule of regular meetings with your URECA student to touch base, review progress and clarify doubts.
- Give feedback to your URECA student on his/her progress.
- Coach and provide research training, if applicable.
- Pay attention to your URECA student's research progress and take appropriate action if the student does not show satisfactory progress.
- URECA student who is on Internship or Exchange Programme (e.g. GEM Discoverer or GEM Explorer) must be observed more closely for research progress.
- Assess and approve your URECA student's claims.
- Conduct URECA student assessment according to URECA Course Outline.
- Encourage your URECA student to participate in the International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR).
- Encourage your URECA student to submit his/her URECA paper to the Undergraduate Awards Programme.
All NTU & NIE faculty including full-time research-active Principal Lecturers, Senior Lecturers and Lecturers are eligible to participate in the URECA supervision as main supervisors.
Visiting or adjunct faculty are also welcomed to participate in URECA supervision as a joint supervisor together with a full time NTU / NIE faculty who will act as the main supervisor.
*Adjunct faculty may submit as main supervisors if their appointment period is within the duration of URECA Programme (1 August to mid-July; inclusive of mark entry period in 1st of week of July).
A faculty may supervise up to a maximum of 6 URECA students excluding FYP-URECA students. Each student must be registered to a research project.
Supervision of each URECA / FYP-URECA project is equivalent to supervising full FYP project in the respective school. If there is more than 1 supervising faculty involved, the workload would be divided in mutually agreed manner between the supervising faculty involved. URECA office does not get involved in the division of workload between faculty.
Faculty who is interested to participate in URECA supervision may upload URECA project proposal(s) in URECA Proposal System during the Call for URECA Project Proposal from April to July through the Staff Intranet > More Services > Student – Related Services > Academic > URECA > Project Proposal > Propose URECA Projects.
There are 3 research project types:
- URECA is a research project proposed by NTU/NIE faculty
- IDR-URECA is an Interdisciplinary Research proposed by NTU/NIE faculty from two or more different academic disciplines (different schools)
- CLRI-URECA is an Industry Research proposed by Principal Investigators (PI) or Researchers from NTU Corporate Labs and Research Institutes
There is no limit to the number of project proposals a faculty can submit in the system.
Faculty who had uploaded their URECA project proposals last academic year but did not register any URECA student to the projects, may copy them to the new academic year. These projects will not be uploaded automatically into the new semester data.
Example of the URECA project proposal fields for input in the URECA Project Management System:
URECA is a research project proposed by NTU/NIE faculty from various schools, providing a wealth of research topics from which URECA students can choose to complement their academic interests, coursework, and career aspirations.
URECA has forged collaborations with National Laboratories and Research Institutes to enable URECA students to meaningfully situate their theoretical knowledge in actual research work as well as to facilitate quality industry exposure.
IDR-URECA is an Interdisciplinary Research proposed by NTU/NIE faculty from two or more different academic disciplines (different schools) to provide URECA students with Interdisciplinary Research experience. Faculty may select one or two other faculty from different schools to jointly prepare an Interdisciplinary Research-URECA (IDR-URECA) project proposal to be uploaded in URECA project proposal system through Staff Intranet.
Faculty who do not have an Interdisciplinary research collaborator(s), may access the Research Directory to identify their co-supervisors. Mutual agreement is needed on the responsibility for IDR-URECA project. The tasks of proposal upload, approval of student’s project consumables claims, URECA deliverables (poster, abstract, paper & reflection of research experience) and mark entry will be made by one supervisor who is the default owner. The ownership can be changed to any of the co-supervisors if necessary, any time before the start of project.
CLRI-URECA is an Industry Research proposed by Principal Investigators (PI) or Researchers from NTU Corporate Labs and Research Institutes to provide URECA students with research industry experience in a multidisciplinary environment.
Principal Investigators (PI) or Researchers from NTU Corporate Labs and Autonomous Institutions prepare a research project proposal to be uploaded in URECA project proposal system through Staff Intranet. The URECA system is an Intranet application which require NTU email account and Staff Intranet access as the main supervisor at present. Access to URECA system is required by main supervisor to key-in research project proposal and to conduct all URECA student actions such as viewing submissions, marks entry etc. (PI or researchers are required to write in to URECA Programme office at [email protected] to request access to URECA project proposals system with their NTU email ID if they are participating in URECA supervision for the first time.)
The list of URECA projects which is accessible through the URECA website intranet is opened to URECA eligible students from 1st of August till 30th of September (end of URECA registration / Add Drop period).
Interested students will contact the faculty for a discussion to find out more about the faculty-led research projects.
Other the other hand, students may have self-initiated research projects and approach faculty to be their supervisors.
Faculty will assess the suitability of the student(s) for the project as well as their academic and extra-curricular commitments. Faculty will choose to accept or reject the student(s) and register the student to the project via Staff Intranet when there is mutual interest.
Each URECA project can only be registered to one eligible student. If a faculty would like to supervisor another eligible student, he/she has to upload another URECA project proposal with slight differentiation in project title to register the student via Staff Intranet.
Please ensure that you have submitted a project proposal before you can proceed to register a student.
| To Register a Student: |
Step 1: Go to Staff Intranet > More Services > Student - Related Services > Academic > URECA > Registration
Step 2: Select Register/Deregister Student option
Step 3: Select the project you wish to register student > select the student and click Register button
*If student is not eligible for URECA, his/ her name will not appear in the drop down list for registration
| To Deregister a Student during Add/Drop period: |
Step 1: Go to Staff Intranet > More Services > Student - Related Services > Academic > URECA > Registration
Step 2: Select Register/Deregister Student option
Step 3: Select the project you wish to register student > select the student and click Deregister button
*The above de-registration option is not available to supervisor AFTER the Add/Drop period.
| Deregister request after Add/Drop period |
Student who wish to withdraw from URECA Programme after the Add/Drop period, is required to submit an official withdrawal application. More information on deregistration.
Following the university course registration guideline, a student who is still registered for a course after the Add/Drop period but did not subsequently complete the course will be deemed to have read and failed the course. URECA is similar to taking a course where student will be graded by his/her supervisor, e.g. if student did not sit for exams/ submit the required deliverables, the student will not receive a pass grade.
- URECA is a 11-months (August to June) research programme. Students must be available for at least 1 semester in NTU if they are going on Internship or Exchange Programme (e.g. GEM Discoverer, GEM Explorer etc.). They are strongly encouraged to discuss their detailed plan with the supervisor for mutual agreement before enrolling in the URECA programme. As projects have different requirements, it is important to consider each case prior to enrolling. Students are expected to work on URECA research projects for 11 months including periods of their Internship or Exchange Programme and manage their time accordingly to the satisfaction of their supervising professors. The URECA deliverables (Poster in end of January, Abstract in end of May, Research Paper & Reflection of research in end of June) are submitted via Student Intranet.
- Each URECA project can only be registered to one URECA eligible student. If a faculty would like to supervise another URECA eligible student, he/she may upload another URECA project with a differentiated project title as shown in the example below from school of MAE. URECA students can work on their research project as a team, however they need to submit their individual URECA deliverables by the stipulated deadline.
Theme of research project: Flight dynamics
| Project Title | Student Name |
|---|---|
| Flight dynamics – aerodynamics | Student 1 |
| Flight dynamics – flow simulation | Student 2 |
| Flight dynamics – CFD analysis | Student 3 |
- The maximum number of student registration per Professor is capped at 6 URECA students in any URECA project type (excluding FYP-URECA students).
- URECA eligible student can only be registered within the Add/Drop period (August - End of September).
All URECA students are assessed and graded according to URECA Outcomes-based Teaching and Learning (OBTL) course outline.
The URECA programme is a 4AUs unrestricted elective (UE), which is part of the General Education Requirement (GER) curriculum. The subject "Undergraduate Research" will be reflected as a 'Pass' or 'Fail' grade in all successfully registered URECA students' transcripts in the following academic year (August). Pass/fail grade will not have any bearings on the computation of students' GPA.
URECA grading is not applicable to FYP-URECA students. There is no additional AUs from URECA for FYP-URECA project as AUs are awarded by respective students' schools.
URECA Certificate will only be issued to students who submit major URECA deliverables (Research poster*, abstract, research paper* and reflection of research experience) by the stipulated submission deadlines and obtain pass grade for URECA.
*Posters/ papers rejected by supervisors must be resubmitted within 3 days after submission deadline
FYP-URECA Certificate will only be issued to students who have submitted all FYP-URECA deliverables that are accepted by their supervising professors by the stipulated deadline.
*The below deliverables apply to FYP-URECA students with the exception of Workshops & Quiz.
| Weightage | Date | Length | Deliverables | Submission |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15% | 1st and 2nd Semester | - | Workshops & Quiz *Workshops 1 to 3 for first time URECA students *Workshops 4 to 6 for returning URECA students | Online Quiz during workshops session |
| 20% | End-Mar | 1 poster | Softcopy of one exibit-able research poster Template will be provided. Optional: Student may apply to participate in the URECA Poster Competition. | Electronic submission to supervising professor via Student Intranet |
| 10% | End-Feb | 250 words maximum | Abstract of URECA research project Optional: Student may apply to participate in the International Conference of Undergraduate Research-URECA (ICUR-URECA) held in NTU on last week of September. | Electronic submission to supervising professor via Student Intranet |
| 30% | End-Jun | 4-12 pages (4 minimum and 12 maximum) | (i) URECA Research Paper Template will be provided. (ii) Report, etc., as requested by professor The Similarity Index of URECA Research Paper in the Originality Report from Turnitin should not exceed 4% for any individual source. | (i) Electronic submission to supervising professor via Student Intranet. (ii) Other submissions to professor as requested. All FYP-URECA students are encouraged to submit their final FYP-URECA paper by end of May prior to cease of NTULearn/ Student Intranet access due to change of their candidature status. |
| 10% | End-Jun | 250 words maximum | Reflection of research experience | Electronic submission to supervising professor via Student Intranet |
| 15% | End-Jun | - | Research experience demonstrated by student as assessed by the URECA supervising professor (and co-supervisor, if any) based on the student's research activities throughout the URECA period. | - |
Project Consumables Funding
The URECA consumable fund should be used on consumables which are directly related to /used for URECA research project. Purchases must be made during the period of research from August to May.
Resources that are available for research use in the University should not be purchased as URECA project consumables.
Returnable materials, such as hardware, must be returned to the URECA supervising faculty at the end of the URECA project duration.
Each URECA, IDR-URECA and FYP-URECA project may claim up to a maximum of $500 (exclude GST) per academic year.
More information on Consumables Claims.
Conference Funding
URECA provides conference fund to support undergraduates traveling to conferences for academic development. The conference fund is available to URECA or FYP-URECA student or a former URECA or FYP-URECA student who has successfully completed at least 1 academic year of URECA / FYP-URECA programme and are looking for funding to attend a conference to present their URECA / FYP-URECA research projects.
The URECA conference support funding for student’s travel expenses to attend overseas conference is suspended during the overseas travel limitation until further notice as per the University direction.
More information on Conference Funding.