CSAS Communicating Research Undergraduate Award

The Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS) gives excellence awards at the end of each academic year to recognize undergraduate student achievement, particularly in the area of communicating research across diverse media and disciplines and to the public. 

While academic research can often find itself contained in highly specialized disciplinary boundaries, CSAS believes that research has the most impact when it can be communicated across disciplines and circulated in the public domain. Learning to communicate academic research is an important practice, since many of the critical issues related to South Asia need to go beyond research communities and reach a broader audience, which often includes people who will be most affected by the policies and insights of research findings.

CSAS’s communicating research undergraduate award aims to support such practices that provide a plurality of perspectives in the public domain. Two awards will be offered based on the best research papers or projects that communicate important issues about South Asia. The research should have been conducted in a class that was held at UC Santa Cruz in the 2025-26 academic year. Students are encouraged to submit academic work that has been disseminated across various media (including, but not limited to, print, radio, TV, social media, etc.) and that aims to participate in public debates around important issues, while remaining accountable to those affected by the research. Each awardee will receive $300 in recognition of their achievement.

Eligibility: The student research must be:

– About the region of South Asia, broadly construed
– Conducted in a class at UC Santa Cruz in the 2025-26 academic year
– Focused on communicating to an interdisciplinary and/or public audience

Application consists of:

1)  A copy of your research paper or a link to your project

2)  A cover letter, which includes:   

a) your expected graduation date, major, and research interests.
b) the class for which the research was conducted and the name of the faculty member who taught the class
c) a brief description of the project’s research topic, methodology, and communication plan (i.e., how you have already           communicated or plan to communicate your research to interdisciplinary and/or public audiences)

Questions? Please contact csasucsc@ucsc.edu

Application Available in April