MediaPost reports the announcement was made by the social media giant when it presented its paper, What Traditional Principles Matter When Designing Social, at the ARF’s Audience Measurement 7.0 conference yesterday.

The US title cites Brad Smallwood, who heads measurements and insights at Facebook, as announcing the competition and suggesting that an overarching goal of the tie-up is to develop platforms and standards to furnish ROI metrics for all media. Facebook will then fund projects for the winning proposals.

The move comes as a new study by ComScore for Facebook revealed that advertisers who want to create successful ads for the social network should just do the same creative concepts as they would for offline media.

Sean Bruich, head of measurement at Facebook, told Fast Company that marketers have been unsure about how, exactly, to advertise on the social network, because it’s a new medium.

“Marketers were asking us, ‘Are the fundamentals of advertising on Facebook the same as the fundamentals elsewhere?’” Bruich told the website. “The experience they’ve built up over the years and the instincts they’ve had can be applied to making more successful ads on Facebook.”