Grants and Writing Resources for Saint Louis University

A biochemistry junior won a 2026 Goldwater Scholarship. The student builds computational models that predict RNA structures in a campus chemistry lab, and the scholarship goes to just over 200 sophomores and juniors nationwide each year. In February 2025, six SLU students reached the semifinalist stage of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program with proposals for Germany, India, Spain, Mexico and Colombia.

Presenting Research

Graduating students nominated by their departments present at the Senior Legacy Symposium, which the University Honors Program has run since 2008. The 2024 event drew more than 200 students from over 50 departments and programs, who brought research posters, oral presentations, art exhibits and musical or dramatic performances. The 2026 symposium added a panel of students who had won ILEX research grants.

Graduate students have their own event. The Graduate Student Association sponsors an annual Graduate Student Research Symposium that accepts both papers and posters, and its conference awards committee handles funding requests from students presenting at meetings elsewhere.

Undergraduate Research Funding

Honors Program students and Presidential Scholars can apply for an Investigative Learning Experiences (ILEX) Grant of up to $1,200, used to carry out a project or to travel and share its results. A faculty mentor letter is required. Undergraduates in the School of Science and Engineering who are accepted to present at a conference can request the SSE Undergraduate Research Travel Award, worth up to $350 for a talk and up to $300 for a poster.

Students looking for a spot on a faculty project can check SURGE, short for Scholarly Undergraduate Research Grants and Experiences, which posts openings in Handshake. Faculty pick whom to hire. The Honors Program also houses the Competitive Fellowships and Scholarships Advising Office, which helps students and alumni prepare applications for national awards, the Rhodes Scholarship and Fulbright grants among them.

Fellowships and Graduate Awards

SLU's Dissertation Fellowship pays an 11-month stipend of $31,500, plus up to 12 hours of tuition scholarship and health insurance. Departments make the nominations. Graduate students can also apply for the Diversity Fellowship and the Presidential Fellowship, which carry the same stipend for up to two years of a master's degree or four years of a doctorate.

The GSA Funding and Awards program adds smaller grants. Brennan Summer Fellowship Awards give up to $1,000 for summer work on a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation and up to $500 for exam preparation, while Professional Development Awards cover up to $550 a year for presenting at or attending conferences. A Publication Assistance Award pays half of eligible publication costs, up to $500.

Student Journals and Prizes

The Kiln Project is SLU's undergraduate literary and visual arts magazine, published each fall and spring. The English department also gives the Albert J. Montesi Award for Creative Achievement, judged by the creative writing faculty and open to work in a range of creative media. Any undergraduate may enter. Undergraduate and graduate English students can join Sigma Tau Delta, the national English honor society.

Since fall 2011, SLU has submitted theses, projects and dissertations electronically to ProQuest for publication, after a format review by the Master's and Doctoral Candidacy Specialists in Graduate Education. The rules are in the SLU Formatting Guide. For journal articles, SLU Libraries holds open access agreements with publishers including Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, Springer and Wiley that cover processing charges for SLU researchers.

Writing Support

University Writing Services in the Student Success Center holds one-on-one consultations in person or over Zoom. It also runs asynchronous sessions, where a student sends a draft and gets written comments with an action plan the same day. Graduate students work with professional staff and graduate assistants. Consultants take dissertations at any stage, from early drafts to final touches.

The Graduate Writing Resources page collects style guides and citation tools such as Zotero and EndNote. It's a good starting point.

When a paper, thesis, or dissertation is ready for a final edit, our editors can help. See our Saint Louis University dissertation and thesis editing and Saint Louis University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.