The National Conference on Undergraduate Research is unique among those designed to stimulate and reward undergraduate research in this Nation's colleges and universities. Now in their sixth year, these national conferences attract more than 1,200 participants with as many as 800 student presentations from the broad spectrum of academic disciplines, but mainly in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. With funding provided by the National Science Foundation, future conferences will be able to maintain their vitality with focus on participation by underrepresented minority students and faculty through competitive travel awards, providing keynote speakers who represent a diversity of models for student participants, and stimulating faculty to design and implement undergraduate research opportunities at their home institutions. In addition, the national conferences will develop databases of faculty contacts for minority student recruitment and for tracking minority students who have attended the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Travel awards to as many as 35 underrepresented minority students and faculty from predominantly minority institutions will be provided.
