BCLA to offer Summer Research Scholarship to Undergraduate Students
The purpose of the 8 week scholarship is to give undergraduate students some experience of research in the area of contact lenses and the anterior eye. 

1. Two awards per year will be granted, subject to suitable applications being received.
2. All applications must be prepared in English and submitted via e-mail to vfreeman@bcla.org.uk  on the application form available HERE
3. No supervisor can receive the award more than once in two years.
4. Scholars must be in the penultimate year of study in their University/College course
5. The project can not be part of coursework required for their study in their University/College
6. Supervisors whose scholar withdraws from a Summer Scholarship for any reason should notify the BCLA immediately. Supervisors have a duty to notify the BCLA of any difficulties or setbacks they encounter in their research.
7. Supervisors and scholars are required to comply with the regulations of the institution where they are undertaking the research. This includes any requirements imposed by legislation on animal experimentation and Research and Ethics Committees (or equivalent).
8. It is a requirement of the award that scholars must submit a short report (up to four A4 sides of 12 point double-spaced print) on the work undertaken by the end of the year of the project and submit an abstract submission for the next BCLA annual conference. The report may be posted on the BCLA website.
9. Supervisors and scholars are required to acknowledge the support of the BCLA in any verbal presentations, written reports, papers or thesis produced as a result of the research undertaken.
10. Any manuscript resulting from the project must be submitted for consideration as a publication to Contact Lens and Anterior Eye, the journal of the BCLA.
11. All applications will be assessed by the academic committee of the BCLA.
12. Applications will be judged upon their originality, aims, methodology and feasibility within the 8 week time frame. In considering the applications, the following criteria will be used:
i. the potential contribution to the field of contact lenses and the anterior eye
ii. the qualifications, experience and proven effectiveness of the supervisor
iii. the likelihood of the student continuing in research as a result of conducting the project
iv. the objectives, plans and promise of the outlined research;
v. the facilities and resources available for the proposed project.
13. The decision of council is final and binding. Under no circumstances will correspondence be entered into.
14. Council members of the BCLA may not submit an application for the award during their period of office.
15. The deadline for 2008 projects is 30th April 2008.

Budget
Scholars will be awarded £1,500 for the 8 week project. There are no additional funds for the institution or supervisor.

Duration
Eight weeks during the summer vacation

Professional Qualifications
The CV of the proposed supervisor and student should be submitted with the application.

Research Training
It is expected that the student will gain some experience in:
a) Introduction to research at postgraduate level
• Why is research important?
• Types of research studies (such as clinical trials, retrospective, studies, questionnaires etc.)
• Ethical issues (including the use of human and animals in research, the Helsinki Declaration, application procedures to Research and Ethics Committees – although it is expected that relevant ethics is sought before the summer studentship commences).
b) Project design, data analysis and dissemination of results
• Experiment design protocol
• Participation in data collection
• Writing up report
• Presentation of work at the BCLA annual conference (can be presented by the supervisor)
c) Computing and IT skills
• Journal literature searches
• Electronic database searches such as Medline, PubMed etc.
• Familiarisation with software packages such as word processing, spreadsheets, statistics packages etc.

To review the 2006 winning entry please click here