All faculty members of Oakland University are eligible to enter the Oakland University Research Excellence Competition.

The University Research Committee selects an award recipient in one of the following categories that rotate on a three-year cycle; social sciences/humanities; natural and mathematical sciences, and professional schools. Please refer to the list of categories at the end of this description.

Candidates may nominate themselves or be nominated by others. A letter of nomination should address the following:

• Basis for the nomination (a candidate may be considered on the basis of a book or collection of related publications and presentations for a career of research accomplishments, or for significant scholarly contributions in a field).
• Quality and significance of the candidate’s work
• Level of peer acceptance
• National/international reputation
• Information that clarifies the value of the candidate’s contributions to the field

The following supporting documentation must accompany the letter of nomination:

• Curriculum vita structured in a format acceptable for tenure/promotion review of research accomplishments. For example, a listing of books written and edited; peer refereed accepted accomplishments; non-refereed accepted accomplishments; and research presentations to learned audiences. All publications must include page numbers to communicate length. Also, an explanation is required about the significance of where a name appears among a string of authors on a publication. For example, biologists typically get the most recognition for being the first author during the early stages of their careers and the last author during later stages of their careers.
• One representative example of the researcher’s work.
• A  summary of a citation search, indicating the number of times a nominee's work is cited in the literature. In fields that do not compile this information, reviews of work by outside reviewers or other supporting documentation can be substituted for the citation search summary.