By Hasan Legal Desk · March 23, 2026
No research papers? That does not disqualify you from EB-2 NIW. The key is identifying your core expertise, connecting it to a specific and defensible proposed endeavor, and showing why it matters to the U.S. market. Here is how to think about it.
No research papers? You can still win EB-2 NIW. But you need to think about it the right way.
Think about how you pitch investors.
The best pitches are focused. Investors do not fund vague ideas. They fund founders who have gone deep on a specific problem in a specific space. They want to know: what is your lane, and how long have you been in it?
The EB-2 NIW works exactly the same way.
Your proposed endeavor needs a core focus. Not just "healthcare" — that is too broad. Something like: I build AI-powered diagnostic tools for early cancer detection. Specific. Defensible. Yours. That is the kind of framing that works.
Then you validate it with your past work.
You have probably done more than you realize. Tools built, frameworks designed, problems solved. Some of it might feel unrelated at first. That is okay. The exercise is connecting the dots — which experiences point directly at this focus area? Those are the ones that matter.
Once you have your focus, ask yourself: is this needed in the U.S. market? If yes, show it. Future collaborations, ongoing projects, even email threads with potential partners who have expressed interest. All of that counts as evidence.
Here is where a lot of people get stuck: figuring out what their core expertise actually is.
If you are unsure, reach out. Send your updated resume — and I mean really updated. Go through old emails, past projects, things you forgot you built. Get it all down. We will find your angle together.