The 2025 scheme for the LMS Undergraduate Research Bursaries in Mathematics is now open. Application deadline: 1 February 2025
Conditions of Award for the 2025 Round (PDF)
Student's Supporting Information Template (Word) (PDF)
Referee's Statement Template (Word) (PDF)
Head of Department's Statement Template (Word) (PDF)
Nature of Awards
The purpose of the awards is to give experience of research to undergraduates with research potential and to encourage them to consider a career in scientific research.
The awards provide support for the student at a rate of either £300 per week for bursaries held at universities based outside London or £310 per week for bursaries held at universities in London, for a period of between 6 and 8 weeks for a full-time project or 12 and 16 weeks for a part-time project. The London Mathematical Society does not pay overheads. The bursaries produce no National Insurance contribution liability.
Awards are not offered directly to individual researchers but to the institutions to which they belong. By signing the Head of Departments Statement, the Head of Department signifies their willingness for the award to be administered by their department and agrees to the Conditions of Award and reporting requirements for the Scheme.
Eligibility
- By the summer of the award, students must have completed (the equivalent of) at least two full academic years of an undergraduate degree in mathematics/statistics and be intending to continue in mathematics education after the summer vacation either as an undergraduate student or a master's student. Applications on behalf of first-year undergraduates will not be considered.
- Researchers in Mathematics at universities and research institutions within the UK are eligible to apply. Interdisciplinary projects will be considered providing the project has significant mathematical content.
- Postdoctoral researchers and new lecturers, early in their careers are also encouraged to apply, and should note this on the application form.
- Only one application should be submitted by a supervisor and a maximum of six applications per institution.
- Institutions are asked to provide match-funding for at least half of the grant awarded (for example, for a 6 week grant at £300 per week at a university outside London, institutions will be asked to contribute a minimum of £900 and the Society will contribute £900). Institutions offering match-funding will be able to receive funding for up to 4 half-funded Bursaries. Institutions not willing to provide match-funding will only be able to receive funding for up to 2 Bursaries. Please bear in mind that this is a national scheme with a limited number of bursaries.
- Students will normally be expected to be on track for a first class degree in order to be considered.
- Students must be registered at a UK institution for the majority of their undergraduate degree.
- Supervisors and students do not necessarily have to be based at the same institution, however we expect that they will collaborate together at the same institution for the duration of the project and have regular meaningful person to person contact (an average of 1 hour per week meeting in person is the minimum expected) to provide teaching in research skills and communication.
- Bursaries will not be awarded for projects that are a part of degree work, or that take place overseas for more than 50% of the project time.
- Bursaries will only be granted for the student named on the application form; awards are not transferable between students.
All applications will first be reviewed and scored by the LMS URB Advisory Board, recommendations for awards will then be submitted to the Early Career Research Committee who will make the final decision on awards. To assist with your application, we would suggest reading the Assessment Guidance and the Assessment Recommendation Form provided to the LMS URB Advisory Board which can be found at the below links:
The Undergraduate Research Bursary Scheme is very competitive, and applications will be judged primarily on the quality and merits of the student, as well as the mathematical merit of the project and experience the student will have while working on the project. Preference will be given to:
- Students who are expected to achieve a first-class degree, who are considering a career in research, but who have not yet had an opportunity to experience research.
- Research projects that have a clearly defined objective which is achievable by the student in the time available.
- Projects which give scope for thought and initiative on the part of the student and do not use the student as a general assistant.
How to apply
- Applicants should complete an online application form (link above) by the advertised deadline.
- Applications must be made by the project supervisor on behalf of the student, and not by the student.
- Applications should be discussed with the nominated student, who should also contribute to the project design.
- Applications should include the student’s academic record and a supporting statement from an academic referee.
- Applications must be signed by the Head of Department to confirm their approval for the award to be administered by the department and to confirm any match-funding contributions by the department (awards are not offered directly to individual researchers but to the institutions to which they belong).
The LMS encourages applications for these bursaries from those from underrepresented groups in UK mathematics, including female, black and disabled candidates. Institutions should consider the LMS guidance on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion to help ensure they submit a diverse group of candidates.
List of Undergraduate Research Bursary recipients: URB List
Please address any queries regarding the scheme to urb@lms.ac.uk.
Testimonials
“This experience has been extremely valuable and has cemented my plans to undertake a PhD upon completion of my current degree. I have learnt a huge amount about how mathematicians formulate new ideas and turn them into a working theorem with proof. Another big lesson learnt was how to deal with setbacks. I have already started work on PhD applications and I am excited to continue researching a different area of maths for my masters. I am very happy to have competed this project and I am proud of the work that has come out of it”.
“My 8-week undergraduate research project has been an amazing experience. I have enjoyed being able to completely immerse myself in a challenging new problem and get a taste of what it is like to do mathematical research. I have developed a wide range of skills necessary for research. There are the fundamentals like time management, organisation and communication and more specific ones too like reading papers, writing reports and collaborating with other researchers. Furthermore, I found it important to set myself targets and monitor them to ensure I was continually making progress towards the goals I wanted to achieve”.
“The research project has been a very fruitful and eye-opening experience, which would not have been possible without the generous support from the LMS bursary. For someone with mainly frequentist theoretical statistics exposure before, the project introduced me to the field of image inverse problems, the method of variational framework and its Bayesian understanding, as well as various tools from optimisation. I also started developing the intuitions for understanding and characterising a complex optimisation algorithm and learned about mathematical foundations of machine learning through my interactions with the research group and various talks I attended. The experience has given me the reassurance about pursuing a PhD and a research career in the future and has enlightened me about the potential fields I can go into for my PhD”.