**4. Conclusion—the way forward for undergraduate research in higher education**

Higher education provision in the UK and across the world is facing a number of challenges to which involvement of undergraduates in research may provide solutions [54]. Enhancing student learning through research and providing undergraduates with research experiences prepares them for increasingly complex careers requiring research experience or transferrable generic skills best acquired through research [55]. It is apparent, however, that more resource-intensive individualized research experiences delivered via UREs give a better and more complete representation of research activities [15]. At the same time, universities in most countries are facing public funding cuts and an increasingly competitive and inclusive higher education environment, resulting in a trend toward economizing teaching by delivering less resource intensive education to larger numbers of students (for example via online course delivery). This presents a significant challenge: how can impactful and meaningful RIT be developed and incorporated in curricula for larger numbers of more diverse students without significantly increasing the required resources?

The RIT strategies at CCCU described in this chapter are obviously not exhaustive and there are numerous examples of other CURE and URE models (e.g., Refs. [18, 33, 34]). In addition, a separate issue not addressed here is that of measuring the concrete benefits to students engaging in RIT and how to use that information to optimize its delivery [17]. However, the examples provided here give an impression of how low-cost CUREs like the Mini-Conference and research-relevant assessment can be linked to UREs within programmes and curricula to provide a pathway for students to engage with research throughout their degrees, making RIT a core component of the curriculum rather than a fractured or "tagged-on" experience not integrated in the rest of the curriculum. To ensure that RIT becomes a more common and integrated feature of higher education programmes, it is essential that innovative models for CUREs, UREs are developed and—more importantly—that these models are linked together in coordinated strategies within programmes of study to maximize their power and impact in transforming student learning.
