Summer Undergraduate Research Institute (SURI)
Research. Creativity. Community.
The Summer Undergraduate Research Institute brings undergraduates into the center of UC Merced’s research community. Across nine weeks, students work alongside faculty mentors, graduate students, and research teams to experience how knowledge is created, challenged, and shared.
SURI combines full-time research with intentional professional development that helps students recognize, practice, and communicate the transferable skills they build through undergraduate research, including critical thinking, collaboration, communication, professionalism, leadership, and career self-development.
What Students Experience
Immersive Research
Students join active research groups and contribute to ongoing scholarly and creative projects across disciplines.
Research Skills and Professional Development
Workshops and mentoring sessions focus on:
- scientific and scholarly communication
- research project development
- responsible conduct of research
- graduate school preparation
- fellowship and funding applications
- professional identity and leadership
Research Community
SURI creates a strong cohort experience through:
- mentoring networks
- community-building activities
- academic and career exploration
- field trips and campus events
More Than a Summer Program
SURI helps students think and work like researchers:
- learning how to frame questions that advance research projects
- working through uncertainty and open-ended problems
- developing systematic and well-documented approaches to research problem-solving
- developing resilience, adaptability, and independence
- collaborating within research teams
- communicating ideas to different audiences
Students leave the program with tangible outcomes that support future opportunities, including research presentations, abstracts, graduate school materials, and expanded professional networks.
SURI 2026
The dates for SURI 2026 will be Monday, June 1st, through Friday, July 31st
This includes orientation day(s) and optional bootcamp workshops throughout the first week and will end with the summer symposium.
