Outstanding Researchers (EB-1B)

The second group in the 1st employment-based preference category includes Outstanding Professors / Researcher (EB-1B). To be included in the group of Outstanding Professors and Researchers, it requires International recognition as outstanding in a specific academic field:

  • At least three years of teaching or research experience in the field, and
  • Offer of a tenured teaching position or a comparable research position or,
  • The offer of a research position having no fixed term, in which the alien will ordinarily have an expectation of permanent employment or,
  • The offer of a comparable research position with a private employer if the employer has at least three fulltime researchers and documented accomplishments in the research field, e.g. patents or articles by employees in recognized journals in the academic field. It is the petitioner, and not the researchers, that must have achieved documented accomplishments. The CIS rejected the suggestion that it should allow a start-up private research organization to petition for a researcher if its principal researchers have achieved documented accomplishments in the field. 

To document that the alien researcher or professor is recognized internationally as outstanding requires submission of at least two of the following:

  1. Documentation of the alien's receipt of major international prizes or awards for outstanding achievements in the field;
  2. Documentation of the alien's membership in associations in the academic field which require outstanding achievements of their members;
  3. Published material in professional publications written by others about the alien's work in the field (must include the title, date, and author); the publication should discuss or analyze the beneficiary's work, a short reference to the beneficiary's work in a professional publication would demonstrate that he or she is recognized as outstanding;
  4. Evidence of an alien's participation, on a panel or individually, as the judge of the work of others in the same or allied academic field; the beneficiary must have judged the work of other professors, researchers, or Ph.D. candidates in the alien's field. Judging the work of other authorities and experts in the alien's academic field is a better measure of the beneficiary's international recognition;
  5. Evidence of the alien's original scientific or scholarly research contributions;
  6. Evidence of the alien's authorship of scholarly books or articles in scholarly journals with international circulations.