Community Partners in Civic Research and Design at Rice University 

Community partners are essential to the mission of the Office of Fellowships and Undergraduate Research of providing Rice undergraduate students with meaningful research experiences in and outside of the classroom.  Community partners provide the setting and opportunities for our students and faculty to address real-world problems.  Our goal is to create learning opportunities for our students that allow them to help improve the greater Houston community.

Rice faculty and students in many disciplines have partnered with non-profit, for-profit, and government agencies across Houston.  Examples of community partners include: the Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, City of Houston Office of Emergency Management, Institute for Sustainable Peace, City of Houston Green Building Resource Center, and Technology for All.   We seek to broaden our network of community partners and encourage project proposals from potential partners who will benefit from student research and who will provide research opportunities that are appropriate for our students.

Here are some expectations for community partners in civic research and design projects sponsored by the Office of Fellowships and Undergraduate Research: 

• Create research opportunities appropriate for undergraduates.  Considerations include, but are not limited to, project duration, data collection, time allocated to the project, and feasibility of completion during the summer. 

•  Include meaningful interaction for students with a community partner in both defining the research or design problem and carrying out the associated project.

• Produce a project/paper researched and written by the participating undergraduates. The scope and content of the project may vary by research topic. The project may be co-authored with other students and/or faculty.

• Provide opportunities for undergraduates to publicly present their work.  This includes presentations to the community partner, presentations at the Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium (RURS), professional conferences, or similar events.

The Office of Fellowships and Undergraduate Research will work with potential community partners to shape their proposed project to meet the project guidelines.  Please be mindful that all programs must be matched with an appropriate faculty partner.  We will do our best to pair organizations with faculty Rice members; however, we cannot guarantee that a project will match faculty research interests.

If you are interested in becoming a community partner, please contact Elizabeth Vann, Associate Director of Civic Research and Design, evann@rice.edu, (713) 348-3978.