Of all heat transfer research arenas, few have the investment return potential of crude oil fouling mitigation. However, crude oil fouling is a very complex phenomenon that occurs via the simultaneous activity of multiple mechanisms. Advances in this field of research are complicated further by the lack of standardized procedures, which would permit unequivocal comparisons of non-proprietary data. As a result, Heat Transfer Research, Inc. formed the Crude Oil Fouling Task Force (COFTF), which is composed of heat transfer experts from many of the world's leading energy companies. The principle endeavor of the COFTF is to ensure that crude oil fouling research is both standardized and industrially relevant. The COFTF recommendations are detailed in this paper.