Grants and Writing Resources for Florida International University
PolarDoc, a startup led by two FIU biomedical engineering doctoral students, advanced from a field of 18,000 startups worldwide as one of eight global finalists for the 2026 EF Hult Prize, FIU News reported in September 2026. The team is advancing PPRIM, a patented handheld device from a professor's Medical Photonics Laboratory. It images the cervix with polarized light, and its software reads changes in collagen structure that may signal a higher risk of early labor.
Honors Research and the April Conference
In the Honors College, research runs through ARCH, Advanced Research and Creativity in Honors. Students in any field find an FIU faculty mentor and choose a pathway. An apprenticeship places a student in an existing lab for a semester. A proposal covers two semesters for natural and social science majors whose programs have no thesis option, and a project gives humanities and arts students a semester for creative or written work. Honors in the Major runs three semesters and counts qualifying thesis work.
The college's awards and funding page lists two competitive grants. The Honors College Research or Creative Work Scholarship pays up to $1,000 toward the costs of a project, with the faculty advisor's approval, and recipients present at the spring Undergraduate Research Conference. The Ricardo Perez – Dulzaides Research Conference Scholarship, also up to $1,000, helps with the costs of presenting at an external research conference.
That spring conference, UndergraduateResearch at FIU, is open to all FIU undergraduates and is the largest multidisciplinary research conference at the university. The Honors College sponsors it. The 2026 poster sessions ran April 7 and 8 in the Graham Center.
A Journal Run by Undergraduates
The FIU Undergraduate Research Journal (FIUURJ) is peer-reviewed and interdisciplinary, covering STEM, the social sciences, the arts and the humanities. Undergraduates staff it with help from faculty advisers. Student editors review writers' proposals and work with them on drafts, and editorial interns handle design and communication. Volume 4 is a special issue on technology and innovation, and Volume 5 will focus on environment and environmental resilience.
According to its about page, the journal takes research from FIU undergraduates and recent alumni. The Center for Excellence in Writing, FIU Libraries, the Honors College and the Undergraduate Research Society are among the partners that produce it.
Doctoral Fellowships
The University Graduate School (UGS) runs its fellowships for new and continuing students as limited, competitive awards. Incoming doctoral students can be nominated for the Presidential Fellowship. Under the fall 2026 guidelines it pays $34,155 a year for four years, with UGS funding two years and the nominating unit funding two through a graduate assistantship. Tuition for 24 credits a year and health insurance are included. Nominations come from the doctoral programs, up to five students each.
Two awards follow the dissertation's stages. The Doctoral Evidence Acquisition Fellowship pays for one term of full-time evidence gathering, such as fieldwork, experiments, interviews or specimen collection; the summer 2026 stipend was $7,087.16, plus tuition for three dissertation credits. Candidates who have finished collecting data and are writing can apply for the Dissertation Fellowship, which paid $17,990.49 for the summer and fall 2026 terms. Fellows are expected to graduate within a year of the award.
Writing Help and the Final ETD
The Center for Excellence in Writing holds individual consultations and workshops, face to face or online, from offices at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus and the Biscayne Bay Campus. Writers bring course papers, proposals, fellowship applications and personal statements, as well as honors theses, master's theses and dissertations. The staff is multilingual.
After a successful defense, the student sends the Final ETD Approval Form to the academic unit or college, along with a publisher's copyright release for any part already published. After UGS receives and reviews it, the ETD Coordinator emails upload instructions, and the manuscript goes up through Digital Commons. Finished work joins FIU's Theses and Dissertations collection.
An ARCH paper, a journal submission or a dissertation headed for Digital Commons can get a final edit from our editors for grammar, consistency and format. See our Florida International University dissertation and thesis editing and Florida International 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 Florida International University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your FIU writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.