The Office of Undergraduate Research and the Office of the Vice President for Research award up to six Excellence in Undergraduate Research Awards (EURA) each year. These awards recognize outstanding accomplishments in scholarly investigation, artistic creation, or performance by The Office of Undergraduate Research and the Office of the Vice President for Research award up to six Excellence in Undergraduate Research Awards (EURA) each year. These awards recognize outstanding accomplishments in scholarly investigation, artistic creation, or performance by undergraduate students.

Beginning with the academic year 2026–2027, EURA will recognize two students from each of the following three categories for a maximum of six award recipients annually: 

• Group 1: Arts, Humanities, Law, and Qualitative Social Sciences, broadly construed
• Group 2: Natural, Physical, Life, Engineering, Computational, and Mathematical Sciences and Quantitative Social Sciences, broadly construed
• Group 3: Health, Biomedical, and Clinical Sciences, broadly construed

In each category, the selection committee intends to recognize:

• One current senior through the Senior Recognition Award
• One current junior or sophomore through the Fellowship Award.

This structure ensures that students whose most significant accomplishments occur during their senior year may be recognized, while continuing to support emerging scholars, researchers, artists, and performers through fellowship and travel funding.

Eligibility

Eligible students should excel in their research, scholarship, or creative works. Nominees can be current seniors, juniors, or sophomores (second, third, or fourth years).

Fellowship Award Recipient

To be considered, students must meet the following criteria:

• Be a current second, third, or fourth year undergraduate student at the University of Iowa
• Demonstrate exceptional accomplishment and promise in research, scholarship, artistic creation, or performance

If applying as a second- or third-year student (not graduating) EURA, students must be returning to the University of Iowa as an undergraduate for the upcoming academic year.

Senior Recognition Recipient

Students nominated for the senior recognition award must:

• Be current seniors graduating during the academic year in which they are nominated
• Demonstrate exceptional accomplishment and impact in research, scholarship, artistic creation, or performance

Nomination and Selection Process

Nominators should be a mentor to the undergraduate researcher that they are nominating, this includes Iowa faculty and professional and scientific staff. Nominations should be submitted by the nominator, rather than the student being nominated. 

Required Documentation:

• Nominee resume or CV
• A 300-500-word response to the following prompt, to be written by the nominee
  • “Provide an overview of the work that you have been involved in. Please highlight the contribution of this work to the discipline of study and the role you played in the initiation or development of this work. Discuss how your involvement in this work impacted your education and career goals. Include your plans to use the award.”
• Faculty support letter
• Optional supplemental materials, if desired.
  • Examples: Artistic portfolios (max. 12 pieces of work), videos of performances (max. 3 minutes), scholarly articles, etc.
  • Materials can be submitted online or dropped off at the OUR office in 6 Gilmore Hall. To request for the return of any physical materials, please email the OUR office.
  • If you have questions regarding optional supplemental materials, please contact the OUR office at undergraduate-research@uiowa.edu.

Late materials will not be accepted.

To submit an application, click on the "Apply" button and sign-in with your Hawk ID and password through the blue "University of Iowa Login" button.

Questions: Lauren Galliart (lauren-galliart@uiowa.edu)

Congratulations to our 2026 EURA recipients!