STAR Application and Abstract Information
Helpful Suggestions for Preparing a STAR Research Proposal and Abstract
Application reminders:
- The application is a fillable .pdf. Students and mentors should prepare the application together and are encouraged to open the application early to familiarize themselves with the various sections.
- Mentors will insert their letter of recommendation WITHIN the application.
- Only one mentor’s name and email address can be entered in the application. It is fine to have multiple mentors but please enter the information for your primary UC Davis mentor. Multiple letters of recommendation may be inserted in the application.
- There are character limits for the different sections of the application. Spaces, punctuation, and letters are included in the character count. Section headers should be in bold, and are not included in the character count.
- Specific Aims: 2,000 characters
- Project Plan Significance: 500 characters
- Innovation: 500 characters
- Hypothesis: 1,000 characters
- Approach (Rationale and Methods; Potential Problems and Alternatives; Experimental Rigor): 8000 characters
- Personal Statement*: 5,000 characters
- Citations: one page limit
- Mentor Publications: Limited to publications resulting from prior STAR student projects, one page limit
- The *Personal Statement is your opportunity to communicate with the Review Committee. Your statement should include information about you - why you're pursuing a DVM, what lead you to your research topic, plans post-DVM, etc.
- It is the student’s responsibility to ensure the application is complete and submitted by the February 14th, 2025 deadline.
General principles:
- Single-space is fine; note that spaces, punctuation, and letters are included in the character count.
- Headings for each section are required, and should be in bold text. Note - Section headers are not included in the character count.
- Use third person (he/she/it) or passive voice tense throughout, EXCEPT in the Personal Statement.
- Be specific and give details as to what you will be doing and the extent of your own participation in the proposed research.
- Projects should be designed so they can be completed by the end of the STAR 10-week period. Remember, there are only 10 weeks of the summer to conduct and complete a project, so the hypothesis must be reasonable.
- While travel to another institution for conducting part or all of your project is allowed, no funding is available for travel.
- If you are planning to conduct research internationally, please contact the Global Programs team via email. There are travel fellowships you can apply for, and paperwork that needs to be completed before you head to your research site.
- Your hypothesis cannot be your mentor's research project, but it can be and hopefully will be related to your mentor's expertise and research foci.
- Potential pitfalls should be listed, as well as alternatives in case these pitfalls materialize.
- If the research involves use of live animals, an IACUC approved animal protocol must be in place before start of work; if animal protocol approval is pending, and is not approved prior to the start of work, the award will be rescinded.
- An application must include the mentor's letter of support. Mentors should insert their letter into the application.
Sample proposals:
Suggestions for STAR Program Proposals:
Title: Title of research proposal should be phrasic, descriptive, and informative.
"good" Role of aspirin in diminishing the incidence of headaches in dachshunds
"bad" Aspirin and dachshunds
Hypothesis: Hypothesis is defined as "a supposition that appears to explain a group of phenomena and is assumed as a basis of reasoning and experimentation."
A hypothesis is thus not a question, is not a prediction, does not seek to describe a phenomena, nor can it be answered with a "yes" or a "no". A hypothesis is a statement, the most important part of your grant application, and must satisfy the definition given above. A well-conceived hypothesis takes a lot of time to draft, but once written, the rest of the application nearly writes itself. A written hypothesis makes tangible the thoughts and ideas swimming in one’s head. A written hypothesis is the intercellular matrix of the body of the grant application. A written hypothesis defines a beginning and an end to your project. Finally, a written hypothesis makes it clear to the reviewer what one is going to study.
"good" Aspirin diminishes headaches in dachshunds by inactivating prostaglandin-synthetase pathways in astrocytes.
"bad" Does aspirin block prostaglandin-synthetase in the brain?
Specific Aims: Specific aims are statements that indicate how one shall test their hypothesis. They are the means by which the experimental plan shall be organized. The specific aims are concrete, well-defined, and tactical. Together, one's specific aims are the strategy to test the hypothesis. Specific aims define the length, depth, and extent of the experimental plan. Remember the time constraints of the summer, and do not be overly ambitious. Also, never, ever, propose specific aim "2" if it depends on successful completion of specific aim "1". Interdependent specific aims are a death-knell, but interrelated specific aims are scientifically harmonious.
Project Plan Significance: In your own words, provide a few sentences indicating to what important question(s) or unresolved issues in the field the research you propose will contribute.
Innovation: Provide a few sentences indicating how the research approach(es) you will be undertaking are new and cutting-edge.
Approach:
Rationale and Preliminary data (if applicable): In this section, the background and justification for the hypothesis and specific aims, and the overall project, is explained. It is not a place for an exhaustive literature review, but critical, contemporary, and the most highly related literature should be presented. The rationale explains the scientific reason for why this project should be conducted. It also begins to justify the experimental plan, such as use of special technologies and/or methods.
General research methods: Each specific aim shall have one, two, or more sub-parts that represent the actual experiments to be conducted under that specific aim. This section should include a title for the actual experiment, and a brief description of what is to be done. If methods to be used are previously published, they can be cited and not further described IF these methods are commonly in use in the mentor's lab and/or the applicant has published them. If these are methods not already established in the mentor's lab, then they should be briefly explained in addition to being cited and a comment as to how feasible and practical it is to establish the method in the mentor's lab in the available timeframe of study. The expected results should be stated.
Potential Problems and Alternatives: Clearly state the one or two most likely problems that you will encounter once you are ready to start work on your specific aims or you are confronted with while gathering and analyzing your data, including not obtaining anticipated results or any results due to experimental challenges. State how you will work to circumvent these roadblocks should they arise.
Experimental Rigor: This section should indicate experimental sample sizes and how they were calculated to assure that biological and technical variation is adequately addressed. A statement about validation of animals, cells and reagents used (eg, cell lines, antibodies used for western blot or immunohistochemistry, genotype of genetically modified organisms, datasets not obtained by you lab, etc).