2016 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)

XJTLU initiated SURF for all departments in 2012, when 36 research projects from 8 different departments were carried during the summer by Year 1 to 3 undergraduate students, under the close supervision of academics. Since then SURF has rapidly gained popularity across the campus. This year, there were more than 140 students, 70 staff members from 15 departments working on 63 projects.

During the SURF period, AEC organises mid-summer get-together events for SURF students to meet each other socially, as well as to learn in a more formal workshop about developing academic posters and delivering a public poster presentation. Big thanks to Dr Joon Sik Kim from UPD who has been delivering the workshop for four years, and always made the session very interactive and engaging.

At the end of each SURF period, usually in early September, a SURF Poster Day is held to mark the end of the period and to allow students to come together to showcase the results of their research projects. This is an increasingly popular event that is attended in ever larger numbers by the broader university community. Looking back on SURF at XJTLU over a five year period from 2012 to 2016, more than 600 hundred students have worked on research projects who chose to stay on campus over the summer, and each year the SURF application process has become more competitive.

While SURF has up until this year been restricted to XJTLU students, starting in 2016, an international student scheme was piloted under which a non-XJTLU international student was accepted to come to the university to participate in one of the research projects. This summer, a Year 3 student from Italy came to XJTLU and collaborated with XJTLU students on a Mathematics project. This scheme is expected to be expanded next year.