Completion of Research and Creative Activity (CORE) Fellowship

• Must be a current graduate student enrolled stateside at SDSU
• Student must have advanced to candidacy
• Student must be enrolled in course units at SDSU during the time of the award
  • No Leave of Absence or Partner Campus forms of study
  • If a student goes on a Leave of Absence, the award will be cancelled
  • If a student drops enrollment, the award will be cancelled
• Student must be in Graduate Student Good Standing (academic and professional)
  • The Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities (CSRR) and the student’s home college will be consulted to ensure that the student is in compliance with the Student Code of Conduct and/or their program’s Graduate Professional Standards.
    • Award nominees and current awardees: A nomination or award is subject to being deemed ineligible if (a) it is determined by CSRR that the student is in violation of the Student Code of Conduct and/or (b) if the program notifies the College of Graduate Studies that the student has violated their program’s Graduate Professional Standards

• Must have a SDSU stateside appointment
• Must be the primary mentor for the research being submitted
• Maximum number of nominations per mentor = 2

• Doctoral/MFA students may request up to $10,000
• Master's students may request up to $5,000
• All expenditures will be handled through CGS
• Funds are to be used for direct costs towards completing the study, including:
  • research materials and supplies
  • participant incentives
  • travel reimbursement for data collection
  • services: e.g., translation of study materials, etc.

Important: Funds not used by the end of the award period will be used for subsequent calls.

Funds cannot be used for:

• Salary support (student, faculty mentor, consultant)
• Guest lecturers
• Conference travel
• Faculty-initiated research
• Personal computer hardware (any hardware purchased will remain the property of the university after the student graduates) 

• A student can only be awarded once during their degree program.
• Nominations are to be submitted by the faculty mentor on behalf of their student(s).
• Presentations or publications of the project supported by the funds should acknowledge this award (2025 Completion of Research and Creative Activity (CORE) Fellowship or the CORE logo)
• If selected for funding, funds will not be dispersed until IRB/IACUC approval documents (or confirmation that IRB/IACUC is not needed) are submitted. 
• Funds will not be dispersed until the awardee and mentor complete a form confirming acceptance.
• The funds must be spent within the allotted time period, September 1, 2025 - August 31, 2026. Unused funds will be used for subsequent calls.
• Student cannot have other federal support for the proposed research (NSF, NIH, etc.).
• Student and faculty mentors are expected to be responsive to Graduate Studies’ emails. If not, funding will be paused.
• Upon completion of the fellowship, the student and faculty mentor must submit a final report detailing their progress and accomplishments.

The project document should include all 5 items listed below.

1. Project Title
2. Project description: A non-technical abstract of the proposed work of not less than 500 and not more than 1,000 words. This should be understandable to an educated reader, who is not an expert in your field. This abstract should include an overview of the central theme of the work.
3. References: a maximum of 1 page of references cited in the project description.
4. Timeline: Provide a timeline of the project, including expected deliverables.
5. Budget: Provide a table of the total requested budget, breakdown of budget, and a 1 page budget justification.

The page limit for the project document is 4 pages. 

Please name the project document: CollegeAbbreviation_MentorLastName_StudentLastName_PROJECT.pdf

Please submit the student biosketch in the NIH format. The fellowship style is recommended, see example. Students can delete irrelevant fields and sections as they see fit (for example, the eRA Commons Username field is not required).

Please name the biosketch:  CollegeAbbreviation_MentorLastName_StudentLastName_BIOSKETCH_.pdf

Letter should be on SDSU letterhead and should include comments on the nominee’s merit, research/scholarly/creative activities (RSCA), quality of the research endeavor, feasibility that the work can be completed within the budget period, originality, perseverance in pursuing goals, and other related comments that will help the reviewers evaluate the nomination’s merit.

The page limit for the letter of support is 1 page.

Please name the mentor letter of support: CollegeAbbreviation_MentorLastName_StudentLastName_LETTER.pdf