Current Students

Research Guidelines

• Meet your URECA supervisor at a reasonable frequency as agreed with the supervisor.
• Work with your URECA supervisor's other students in a team with good initiative.
• Plan your time and inform your URECA supervisor of any major concerns as early as possible.
• Discuss your URECA project consumables purchase needs with your URECA supervisor and submit your purchase order pre-approval in URECA system.
• Submit your individual URECA deliverables (research poster, abstract, research paper and reflection) as per URECA assessment guidelines by the specified deadline.
• URECA deliverables should be plagiarism-free from other students’ research works.
• Attend 3 workshops conducted in either semester 1 or 2, and complete 3 quizzes.
• Complete online anonymous URECA Programme feedback at the end of your project through Student Intranet.

All research conducted by NTU staff and students involving the use of human subjects (or human participants) must be reviewed and approved by the School-level Ethics Review Committee (SERC) before they are conducted. You may seek guidance from your URECA supervisor who is the PI of the research project on IRB application/ review/ approval related matter or contact NTU-IRB (irb@ntu.edu.sg) for advice.

All URECA students are assessed and graded according to URECA-OBTL-Course Outline.

The URECA programme is a 4 AUs to fulfil Broadening & Deepening Elective (BDE) / 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 course registration will be done by URECA office.

 *Students who have exhausted their AUs for UE courses, may request for overloading from their school before the URECA course registration commences.

 URECA student's degree audit will reflect as "In Progress" if the registration is successful.

The workshops offered by URECA are mandatory for URECA students to attend as these are necessary to develop skills and knowledge in research. Each workshop will only be conducted 4 sessions between Semester 1 and Semester 2. Students are strongly encouraged to plan their schedule and attend the earliest session where possible to avoid last minute unforeseen event and miss the workshop. Please refer to the student intranet for the Workshops Schedules. 

*Please note that quizzes are conducted at the respective workshops. You are required to attend at least 65 minutes for all online workshops and completed the quizzes for your quiz marks to be counted towards your URECA Assessment. Workshop registration links are available in NTULearn on 6 Oct onwards only for students who are registered to URECA Programme.

Students who have completed the quiz but did not attend at least 65 minutes of the online workshop, are required to attend the same workshop in the next available session.

*Marks from quizzes and video assessment of the workshops 3 & 4, will not be counted towards the overall URECA grading for first time URECA students who attended any of the workshops 3 & 4. First time URECA students are only required to attend workshops 1 & 2.

URECA provides small project consumables fund to cover the expense of low-cost equipment, materials or resources required for conducting research and consumed completely in the course of research project duration within current Academic Year (August to June).

The URECA project consumable fund should be used on consumables which are directly related to URECA research project and are used completely in the conduct of the research project. Each URECA, IDR-URECA and FYP-URECA project may claim up to a maximum of $500 (excluding GST) per academic year. Purchases must be made during the period of URECA programme from August to May.

Note: CLRI-URECA project consumables are required to be purchased through the respective school/research labs/centres.

Important note:

With effect from AY2026-27, URECA conference funding will only support interdisciplinary projects (i.e. IDR-URECA projects, CLRI-URECA projects and URECA projects that are supervised by main supervisors who are not from students' schools). These students will follow the current URECA conference funding application process, with funding quantum based on the existing guidelines listed below.
 

Students undertaking non-interdisciplinary projects (i.e. students undertaking URECA projects with supervisors from their own schools) will need to seek conference funding directly from their respective schools.

URECA students can apply for conference funding to attend conferences to broaden their research experience through exchange of ideas, current findings, anticipate developments, networking in similar fields of research, etc.

Conference funding is available to the following students:

1. Current URECA students who are supervised by a main supervisor from another school.

2. Former URECA students who were supervised by a main supervisor from another school, had successfully completed at least one academic year of URECA Programme, and are presenting research conducted under the URECA Programme.

Please click here for details of financial assistance guidelines, application procedure, supporting documents required, entry VISA application, overseas travel declaration and insurance matters.

Current URECA students who are supervised by main supervisors from their respective schools

Please refer to the application requirements here.

Guidelines

Students who have already obtained URECA approval for their conference funding application, may proceed to submit their conference funding claim for processing after returning from the conference. 

The URECA conference funding claim is made on a reimbursement basis whereby original documented evidence of presentation schedule, receipts, tickets, etc. are required for claim.

Claim Submission Deadline

The conference funding claim must be submitted within one month after attending the conference. Claim submitted after one month from attending the conference will not be accepted for processing.

Submission Procedure via Student Integrated Claim System (ICS)

1. Compile the required supporting documents in the required order (refer to below section of Supporting Documents Required).
2. Complete the ICS claim form and upload the documents in (1) for approval. Please access ICS through Student Intranet.
3. Follow the steps in the user guide to complete the ICS claim form for URECA office approval.
4. NSS Finance processes the payment via GIRO.

Note: For NIE students or graduated students, please email the documents in (1) in one PDF file to ureca@ntu.edu.sg for assistance.

Supporting Documents Required 

Scanned copy of official invoices and/or receipts for the following must be submitted via ICS. Please compile and upload the required supporting documents in the following order.

(a) Approval of conference funding notification email.

(b) Proof of Attendance (e.g. either a certificate of attendance / letter from Conference organisers / registration documents that were stamped and dated at the conference).

(c) Presentation schedule showing the student's name.

(d) Conference Proceedings (e.g. proceedings booklet, web publication, etc.) of the published paper with URECA Acknowledgement or conference abstract with presentation slide showing URECA Acknowledgement.  

(e) Official receipt for conference registration fee payment (for e-receipts, a copy of your credit card statement reflecting the amount paid is also required).

(f) Official receipt for air ticket and boarding passes (for e-tickets, a copy of the credit card statement reflecting the amount paid is also required). If the air ticket is not purchased from NTU appointed travel agent, a copy of the initial quotation issued by the NTU appointed travel agent must also be attached for NSS Finance reference.

If you made detours/additional stopovers outside the approved official itinerary, a quotation for the most economical and direct route to the conference venue must be obtained and attached with the receipt. This quotation will be used by the NSS Finance as the basis for reimbursement of airfare, in accordance with the terms of financial support approved by URECA office. If there are multiple travelers' names on the receipt/itinerary, the applicant must provide proof of payment of his/her share of the travel expense. 

(g) Accommodation (proper accommodation receipt showing the applicants' name and itemized charges is required)

(h) Transportation (proper receipt showing intercity/state land travel by public transport is required)

(i) For expenses incurred in foreign currency, applicant must provide the bank/credit card statement reflecting the amount paid in Singapore dollars. If no document to support the amount paid in Singapore dollars, please provide document for the backdated currency exchange rate (based on the transaction date) which can be obtained from website such as ONADA. Please use the backdated exchange rate to convert the claim amount into Singapore dollars for claim.

(j) A short write-up (≤ 250 words) on conference experience, accompanied by a high-resolution photograph taken during the conference for possible inclusion in the URECA yearbook and website.

Should there be any discrepancies (e.g. false declaration of claim, etc.) URECA Office reserves the right to recover the conference funds from student that is deemed responsible for the claims.

Discontinuation of the URECA Journal Publication Reward (Effective AY2026-27)

Not applicable to URECA students and FYP-URECA students enrolled from AY2026-27 onwards. 

Former URECA students and FYP-URECA students who are meeting the application requirements outlined below are eligible to apply for the reward. 

Purpose

URECA students are encouraged to develop advance research communication skills through publication in archival journals. Former URECA students and FYP-URECA students who have successfully published their URECA research work in archived journal are eligible to apply the Journal Publication Reward subject to meeting the following requirements. 

Award

The application for URECA Journal Publication Reward will be reviewed and awarded based on the Journal quartile ranking shown in the table below.

The highest quartile ranking will be considered for the URECA reward when a journal is assigned different quartile rankings across multiple subject categories, based on the ISI web of knowledge database.

Conditions of Reward

• Student must be the main author (first author) of the paper published in the journal.  

  Student's name must appear as first author on the full paper published in the journal to qualify for the award.
  For authors listed in alphabetical order, a confirmation email on the main authorship (e.g. first author/equal contributions as first author) from the journal as supporting document is required.
  If the journal has a specific policy on the listing order of authors which differs from the above, evidence of such policy (letter or website) from the journal should be submitted as supporting document.

• Former URECA / FYP-URECA student is eligible to apply for URECA Journal Publication Reward within one year after he/she graduated from NTU/NIE, if his/her paper is accepted for publication in a journal as the first author.

• Reward is to be shared between the supervisor and student.

• One of the following statements must be included under the "Acknowledgement" section of the journal paper:

(a) We wish to acknowledge the funding support for this project from Nanyang Technological University under the URECA Undergraduate Research Programme.

(b) This project was supported by Nanyang Technological University under the URECA Undergraduate Research Programme.

Please note that papers submitted without the above acknowledgement will not receive the journal publication Reward.

 Application Procedure​

1. Complete URECA Journal Publication Reward Application Form.
2. Merge completed form and supporting documents into 1 PDF file and email it to ureca@ntu.edu.sg.
3. All applications are properly reviewed and evaluated by URECA Publication Sub-committee which recommends the level of support.
4. URECA office will notify the student of his/her application outcome.
   
   

Supporting Documents Required

1. Acceptance letter from the journal.
2. Journal Impact Factor (from Journal Citation Reports) or CiteScore (from Scopus).
3. Journal Quartile Ranking*.
4. A copy of the accepted paper to be published in the journal.
5. A copy of degree transcript (applicable only to graduated applicants).

*Quartile ranking from Journal Citation Reports (JCR) should be used if applicant is citing the journal impact factor. Likewise, ranking details from Scopus should be used if applicant is citing the CiteScore.
Journal Quartile Ranking can be obtained through NTU library

https://libguides.ntu.edu.sg/az.php?a=j > Journal Citation Reports > Search for a specific journal >Enter words from journal title > click on journal title > click Journal Rank in Categories 

OR

https://libguides.ntu.edu.sg/az.php?a=s > Scopus > Sources > Use Source type to filter a specific journal > click on journal/source title to view CiteScore and ranking details.

During Add/Drop Period

Students may change URECA project/supervising professor or withdraw from URECA programme during the Add/Drop period (end of September). (Change of supervising professor is not applicable to FYP-URECA)

URECA programme withdrawn during the Add/Drop period will not be reflected in the official transcript.

With the approval of your URECA supervising professor to withdraw from the URECA programme, your URECA supervising professor may deregister you through the URECA system. You should receive an auto notification email of your withdrawal after it has been activated by your URECA supervising professor, to be considered successfully deregistered from URECA programme.

After Add/Drop Period

A student who is still registered for URECA programme after the URECA Add/Drop period but did not subsequently complete the project will be deemed to have read and failed the course. An 'F' grade will appear on the student's official transcript.

URECA withdrawal application are summarized in the following table: 

Alternatives to Withdrawal

Student should consider change of research project/ supervising professor. Change of supervising professor requires student to find a new supervising professor and subject to the approval from the current supervising professor. Please notify URECA Programme office via email ureca@ntu.edu.sg on the change of research project/ supervising professor. (Change of supervising professor is not applicable to FYP-URECA)

Withdrawal Procedure

1. Complete and submit a URECA Withdrawal Form (attach the supporting documents, if any);
2. Speak with URECA / FYP-URECA supervising professor, URECA School/Programme Coordinator and School Chair/Assoc Chair to seek withdrawal approval (endorsement must be obtained);
3. E-mail completed URECA Withdrawal Form to URECA Programme Office for URECA Director approval (Incomplete form will not be processed by URECA office);
4. Receive notification on the outcome of the appeal to withdraw from URECA Programme.
   
   NOTE: Student is responsible to follow through his/her withdrawal application. 

 Withdrawal Notes

Appeals to withdraw from URECA after the URECA Add/Drop period will be subject to approval on a case-by-case basis and may be granted for the following reasons:

1. Medical grounds

   This must be supported by a letter from a certified medical practitioner or counsellor (including the University's counsellor).

2. Compassionate grounds

   Bereavement affecting the student or student has to look after an immediate family member with chronic medical conditions. Supporting documents such as death certificate or medical report, and School's recommendation are required.

3. Student representing the University or country in national or international events

   Letter of support from relevant parties and proof of participation is required. The School's recommendation is also required.

   Note: Heavy academic workload, Industrial Attachment (IA) or participation in exchange programme will NOT be accepted as valid reasons for withdrawal after the Add/Drop period.