Registration and Application
Open February 1 through March 20, 2026
All UCSB undergraduates who conducted research in the academic year are invited to apply for the URCA Week Conference. Students who would like to share their work must submit this form by March 20, 2026.
Application requirements
- Applicant information like your name and major
- Project title and abstract
Schedule and Structure
Please note that the conference format has changed and we have three options. Events will run concurrently in adjacent rooms in the Library.
All talks will be scheduled for Friday, May 15th between 9 AM and 5 PM. Sessions will be 50 minutes long, scheduled to start each hour on the hour.
To ensure cohesive panels, students are grouped strictly according to research topics. Because of the complexity of these groupings, we cannot accommodate individual scheduling requests.
Presentation Formats
Oral Presentations
Presentations that are 5-7 minutes long, immediately followed by a Q&A. Selected students will be grouped according to topic and experts from the field will act as moderators for each session.
Self-Organized Panels
For groups of 4-5 individual presenters self-organized around a centralized theme or topic. Each individual should plan to present for 7 minutes, followed by a Q&A session.
Demonstrations
Students who developed creative projects or technologies that are more suitable for demonstration and interaction are invited to apply for this less formal format, in which students will be assigned an area with a table to set up and share their projects with visitors.
Presenting Your Research in a Conference Setting
Presentations at conferences vary by discipline, so don’t be surprised or worried if what other people are doing looks very different from your work. This is an opportunity to learn from each other in an interdisciplinary setting.
Some students come in with fully scripted talks and slide shows, whereas others prefer a more casual approach to talk through their research experience, methods, results, etc.
There is no one right way to do this and it may also depend a bit on how far you are in your research. You may want to present completed research, or you may also share where you are struggling and seek advice from your peers how you might proceed.
Who will be there?
The moderators for the panels include faculty, graduate students, and affiliates from the Office of Teaching & Learning. They will give a brief introduction to the panel, keep things moving on time, and facilitate the discussions. These partners will also be a part of the application review process.
Some panels may have an audience, others may be discussions just among the panelists. There has been a big range in the past.
It is common for students to invite friends or family members to attend their sessions.
Typical Presentation Content
Introduction
Introduce yourself and your topic! Present your research question, why your work is significant to your field, and briefly state what you found or expect to find.
Methods
This is the section to describe your procedure/research design/how you did what you did to find answers to your question
Results
Summarize the data and report the results of any statistical tests or conclusions from research.
Discussion
How do you interpret the results? Was it what you expected? What are the implications and limitations? Where might this go moving forward?