Welcome to CUREnet!

Research experiences are thought to be pivotal in the education and professional development of undergraduate science majors. Yet, there are many more undergraduates than can be accommodated through traditional research internships. In order to meet the demand for undergraduate research experiences, faculty have developed projects that engage whole classes of students in addressing a research question or problem that is of interest to the scientific community, dubbed "Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences" or CUREs.

CUREs offer several advantages over research internships - they can enroll many more students and they are accessible to all students who enroll, not just the few who stand out in class, who are confident enough to approach faculty directly, or who have personal or programmatic connections that help them get access to research.

CUREnet was established in 2012 to support networking among faculty developing, teaching, and assessing CUREs, to share CURE projects and resources, and to develop new tools and strategies for CURE instruction and assessment.

What is a CURE?CURE as Pedagogy CUREs for Research

CURE Collection

The CURE Collection is comprised of descriptions of CUREs developed by faculty from around the country. Often, the descriptions were begun at a CUREnet Institute and completed following implementation of the CURE. At several points, CUREnet conducted peer review of CUREs in the Collection with particularly good ones being labeled "exemplary."

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News

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Invitation to synthetic biology workshop
Join us to learn about the Build-a-Genome CURE!
Recruiting CURE instructors for mentorship study (Fall 2025)
The Knight lab is recruiting CURE instructors to distribute surveys to their students this fall as part of a study of mentorship in CUREs.
Science Communication in CUREs - recruiting CURE instructors and students
We are researchers at Colorado State University focused on DBER research in the areas of both science communication training for STEM students as well as CURE courses. We are currently studying the impact of training in evidence-based, participatory science communication on how students communicate about research they do in CUREs.