Successful Undergraduate Research in Science to Meet the Challenges of the 21st Century

In 2002, Delaware's Wesley College and the Delaware Biotechnology Institute at the University of Delaware established a successful partnership that brings first- and second-year undergraduates into the research enterprise, with special emphasis on closely-mentored, well-designed projects in the early stages.  Students carry out research both during the academic year and in full-time summer research internships. Wesley is a comprehensive private liberal arts and sciences college with an enrollment of approximately 1600 undergraduates, located in Dover, Delaware; the University of Delaware (UD) is a research-intensive, doctoral-granting institution with approximately 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students, located in Newark, Delaware. Wesley College has chosen to focus on the undergraduate research experience, to promote active participation for undergraduates early in their careers, and to develop collaborative research with the partner institutions.  This extensive experience in research participation often beginning during the freshman year has shown to be especially useful and students regularly receive recognition at national meetings, are awarded significant scholarships and fellowships, and are accepted in competitive graduate and professional school programs.  Joint work is funded through a grant from the NIH NCRR IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), which has provided a platform for the collaboration.  The INBRE project, led by the Delaware Biotechnology Institute at UD, brings together six Delaware institutions to build biomedical research capability statewide, and to provide access to biomedical research resources for promising undergraduates.  The partners in this project include the University of Delaware (UD), Delaware State University (DSU), Delaware Technical & Community College (DTCC), Wesley College (Wesley), Christiana Care Health System (Christiana), the Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children (Nemours), and the Delaware Biotechnology Institute (DBI).