Grants and Writing Resources for the University of Virginia
Twenty UVA students and recent alumni received Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards to teach, study or research abroad in 2025-26, and the University was again among the program's top producers. Of the 441 Goldwater Scholars named for 2025, two were UVA undergraduates: a second-year biomedical engineering student and a third-year biochemistry and physics major.
Undergraduate Research Grants
The Office of Citizen Scholar Development advises undergraduates, graduate and professional students, and alumni on national fellowships such as the Fulbright and the Truman. It also runs undergraduate research at UVA, where the grant programs include the Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards, the Double Hoo Award, the Kenan Award and the University Undergraduate Award for Arts Projects.
Students who will present at a research conference or workshop in the United States can apply for a URN Conference Grant. Awards are competitive and run up to $500 per person for travel, lodging, registration and meals. The application asks for a budget, an unofficial transcript, a resume and proof of conference acceptance, or of application if the decision is still pending.
Work gets shown at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, which is open to every UVA undergraduate involved in research and creative inquiry, in any discipline. The 2026 symposium was held in Newcomb Hall on April 24, with posters, oral presentations, and performance, visual arts and design presentations.
Student Journals
The research office points undergraduates to three UVA student journals that accept submissions and take students onto their editorial boards: Seriatim, The Spectra: The Virginia Engineering and Science Research Journal, and Virginia Policy Review. Its advice before submitting anywhere is short. Ask a faculty advisor or mentor to review the manuscript first.
Graduate Fellowships and Research Grants
The Graduate School runs several internal fellowship and grant competitions. AHSS Summer Research Grants pay for preliminary dissertation research, such as visits to archives and museums, for Ph.D. students in the arts, humanities and social sciences who are no more than three years into their programs. The Dumas Malone Graduate Research Fellowship supports advanced students who need archives in one or more foreign countries. The Albert Gallatin Graduate Research Fellowship funds dissertation research or writing in international affairs that requires travel. Trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation sponsor both.
Top doctoral students in all arts and sciences fields compete for Jefferson Scholars Foundation Graduate Fellowships, a two-year sequence that pairs a dissertation completion fellowship with a postdoctoral appointment in the College Fellows. Advanced doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences can also spend a year at a partner school. The exchange with the École Normale Supérieure in Paris requires fluent French. At Technische Universität Dortmund, fellows teach two two-hour courses a semester, in English, on American literary, cultural or historical topics at the Institute for American Studies, and earn €13,000 in teaching wages plus a $14,000 Graduate School stipend.
Digital projects get separate support from the Scholars' Lab. Its Praxis Program puts a team of six UVA Ph.D. students to work for an academic year building and publishing a digital project, and its Digital Humanities Dissertation Fellowship goes to advanced students finishing dissertations with digital content.
Writing Help and Libra
The UVa Writing Center is free to all current UVA students, regardless of year, school or major. Consultants meet writers in person, online in real time or asynchronously. They help with class essays, conference papers, theses and dissertations, cover letters and personal statements, and they work at any stage from brainstorming to revision.
Doctoral students finish by uploading the final, approved dissertation to Libra as part of thesis submission and graduation. Libra is the University's open access repository, and its LibraETD collection has held UVA electronic theses and dissertations since 2012. ProQuest is optional. UVA has no institutional agreement with the company, so students who want a ProQuest copy deposit as individuals and pay its submission fees.
A dissertation headed for Libra, or a seminar paper headed for a student journal, can come to our editors for a final edit covering grammar, consistency and format. Details are on our University of Virginia dissertation and thesis editing and University of Virginia 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 the University of Virginia, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your UVA writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.