Objective To find the actual situation of participation of scientific research by undergraduates and to explore influencing factors in order to improving stuents' capacity building of scientific research.Methods A questionnaire was used to investigate the performance of research by medical undergraduates from Southwest Medical University grades ranging from 2015 to 2019, and to examine their participation.Results A total of 430 valid questionnaires were withdrawn,68.8%(296/430) of the students had not participated in any scientific research projects, and 59.7%(80/134)of the students had no experience of writing research papers.The influencing factors of hindering students' participating in scientific research projects are as follows: lack of supervisors[60.8%(180/296)], lack of enough energy [21.6%(64/ 296)], to avoid potential failure of publishing paper [14.5%(43/296)] and had no interest in research[3.1%(9/ 296)].Conclusions Only few students joined research projects.So it is necessary to initiate early education of science and research, to provide facilities like technology platform and supervision by research P.I and even resources from enterprise and other stakeholders and thus to support the capacity building of undergraduates in scientific research.