Grants and Writing Resources for Brigham Young University
In May 2026 Stanford named a 2023 BYU political science graduate, an alumnus of the Honors Program, to its 2026 class of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, a graduate fellowship that accepts about one percent of applicants. A year earlier BYU had its first Knight-Hennessy Scholar. That 2025 awards season also brought NSF Graduate Research Fellowships to seven BYU students, with honorable mentions for 19 more.
Presenting Graduate Research
BYU's 3 Minute Thesis starts with competitions inside graduate departments and colleges, and the winners advance to a university final. Each talk has to make sense to a lay audience. Competitors get one static slide, and anyone who runs past three minutes is disqualified. Every university finalist receives a $1,000 scholarship. The top three places add $5,000, $4,000 and $3,000, and the Presenters' Choice winner adds $2,000.
Conference trips have separate money. The Graduate Student Society gives Professional Presentation Awards to graduate students who present original research or show creative work at events in their discipline. Awards are made in fall and winter, a student can receive one per academic year, and the work has to come from graduate study. The society says nearly a third of applicants receive one.
Honors Thesis Funding
The Honors Program puts up to $1,200 toward honors thesis research. Eligible costs include materials, payments to research participants, software, access fees, required travel and equipment rental. The budget is itemized in the thesis prospectus and approved in advance, and IRB approval comes before any money is released. A second fund of up to $1,000 helps students who present thesis research at an academic conference or send it to an off-campus publication.
Student Journals
BYU students edit Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism. A student selection board handles peer review, and the lead editors make final decisions with a faculty advisor. The journal gives priority to undergraduates and also considers recent graduates and master's students. Volume 19 came out in Winter 2026.
Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies publishes undergraduate work in political science and international relations once a year, in April. It takes research notes, book reviews and policy briefs as well as longer papers, and authors agree to revise with the editors during fall or winter semester. The ScholarsArchive journal list includes The Thetean, a student journal of historical writing, and Intuition, the undergraduate psychology journal.
Fellowships and Research Grants
The Simmons Center for Cancer Research funds incoming Ph.D. students in cancer-focused research through its Graduate Student Research Fellowship: $38,000 a year in stipend and scholarship, plus a $1,000 starting allocation, for up to three years. Candidates should have done their undergraduate study at another institution, though students from BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii are eligible. Each participating department nominates one candidate at a time.
Some categories in the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies awards and grants program are open only to BYU students or faculty.
Help With Writing and the ETD
The Research & Writing Center, in 3340 HBLL, works with students at every stage of research and writing. Graduate students can book a Graduate Writing Consultant for longer projects or apply to the Grad Pace Program, which pairs a student with one consultant for recurring sessions through the semester. With Graduate Studies, the center also holds a free one-day Thesis & Dissertation Writing Camp, with structured writing time and 30-minute one-on-one sessions with consultants. Breakfast and lunch are provided.
Finished theses and dissertations are uploaded to GradProgress after the Adobe Acrobat Pro accessibility checks. Graduate Studies reviews the preliminary pages and formatting, the department and college review the document, and Graduate Studies then gives final approval and releases the ETD to the library. For ETD formatting, the writing center's FAQ sends students to the multimedia lab on the fourth floor of the HBLL. BYU has required electronic submission since September 2009, and the work is collected in the ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations collection.
A defended thesis still has to clear format review, and a final edit for grammar, consistency and format helps it get through. See our Brigham Young University dissertation and thesis editing and Brigham Young University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.
From Our Writing Guides
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Managing Editor of Editors For Students. Links checked October 2026.
Editors For Students is an independent editorial service and is not affiliated with Brigham Young University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your BYU writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.