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The Student Summer Research Awards

The Student Summer Research Awards (SSRA) Committee invites the submission of project proposals for SSRA from mid-November to March each year. SSRA Projects are eight-week laboratory, clinical, patient-centred or educational research projects which are undertaken by undergraduate students from the School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering during the Summer trimester each year.

Ethics

We expect that most SSRA projects will be exempt from full ethical review in UCD. As some projects will require full ethical review, please allow enough time for this to take place in advance of the project start date. Ethics approval (if required) must be in place before the commencement of all summer research projects.

  • Please note, students do not have the right to access medical records which identify patients (e.g., imaging databases that identify patients) for research purposes.
  • Please note that SSRA students are NOT permitted to conduct procedures on living animals as part of their research activity. SSRA students may use animal tissue from projects with ethical approval in place.

Further information and relevant Ethics compliance forms for the UCD School of Medicine REC can be found HERE

Please note that SSRA students may not be insured unless UCD can verify that the proper ethics protocols have been followed. We thank you for your cooperation on this important matter.

Publications

Have you hosted an SSRA Student in the past? We are asking past SSRA Supervisors to let us know of instances where research that their SSRA Student(s) took part in have been published. We are very interested in tracking and collating publications such as peer reviewed full research papers and review articles or conference proceedings, that past SSRA students have contributed to. You can submit this information (opens in a new window)HERE

Supervisor Funding

The SSRA Programme can offer limited funding to support UCD supervisors who are hosting SSRA students. Funding MUST go towards experimental consumable costs linked to the project. Applications can be made via a link posted (opens in a new window)here from mid-November each year.

Supervisor Project Submission

Project details can be submitted via an (opens in a new window)Online Submission Form link, which is made available here from mid-November to February each year.

Supervisors may submit no more than 3 projects each year

On submission, your Project details will be reviewed by the SSRA Committee and we will contact you with a project number and details of next steps including ethics requirements.

Student / Supervisor Matching

After reviewing the project, students fill out an application form and will email the Supervisor directly with their interest. Supervisors can choose their student via the email application, CV or interview process.

You should consider the University's EDI Policy when selecting your Student.

Only ONE student can be selected for each project. If more than one student has applied for a project, it is up to the supervisor to select the most appropriate candidate of choice.

Form

Due Date
Description
SSRA 2026 Induction Book - This booklet is for student information
SSRA Key Dates 2026 - Key Dates for student information
SSRA Ethics Guidelines & Declaration Form   2nd  June 2026 This form should be completed and submitted on Brightspace before your project begins

UCD School of Medicine

UCD Health Sciences Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
T: +353 1 716 6603 | E: school.medicine@ucd.ie