The Image of Research invites students to engage creatively with their research by visualizing and articulating the importance and impact of the research experience for themselves and others. Research is defined broadly to include the breadth of scholarly and creative work taking place across a multitude of disciplines at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Each year, we host two separate competitions:

The Graduate Competition is organized by the Scholarly Commons in the University Library and the Graduate College.

The Undergraduate Competition is organized by Teaching, Learning and Academic Support in the University Library and the Office of Undergraduate Research.

In both competitions, students are invited to submit entries that consist of an image and brief narrative. Entries are judged by a multidisciplinary panels for:

• Connection between image, text, and research
• Originality
• Visual Impact

All submissions are archived in IDEALS, a repository hosted by the University Library for long term preservation.

Now in its eleventh year, Image of Research at Illinois was inspired by the Image of Research competition at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to 2022, Image of Research competitions were supported by a gift to the Scholarly Commons from the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics.