Ideal ways of making a call for nominations We're currently putting out a Call for Nominations for graduate research and historically we've received very few nominations. What are some good strategies to get more nominations. Should we be more specific or broaden the qualification.

The award is from a minority organization for "doctoral candidates who have demonstrated excellence in research or in teaching".
Improve the reward. If you're not currently offering money, consider doing it. Other forms of reward I can think of can be:


the opportunity to give a talk at a prestigious venue, to a nice audience
the opportunity to give a talk alongside a famous speaker (say, allowing the awardee to give a 15' talk just before a 1 hour talk by some famous person)
an introduction to some influent people, possibly looking to hire researchers