INFORMS Open Forum

The George Nicholson Student Paper competition is held each year to identify and honor outstanding papers in the field of operations research and the management sciences written by a student. Click here for full information

The following conditions must be satisfied for eligibility:

• The entrant must have been a student on or after June 1 of the previous year under consideration;
• The paper must present original research results (a summary of multiple papers is not eligible);
• The research must have been conducted while the entrant was a student;
• One or more advisors may appear as co-authors of a paper, but the student's contributions must make up the majority of the paper. The advisor (or nominator) must explicitly comment upon and specify in a letter the percentage of contribution of the student;
  • in defining the problem and initiating the research that resulted in the paper;
  • in conducting the research itself that resulted in the paper;
  • in writing the paper.
• An entrant can submit at most one paper to the competition, and the same paper cannot be submitted by multiple entrants. An entrant may appear as a co-author on another paper(s) submitted to the competition, as long as the other paper(s) is submitted by a different entrant(s);
• The paper must not have won a prize (1st-2nd) in a previous Nicholson Competition;

The paper is submitted in a blind format.

Finalists will be invited to present their papers at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, prior to the award winner announcement at the Awards Ceremony.