On your bike: Harnessing UK ingenuity to tackle bike theft and increase cycling to work

22/6/12

Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, has today thrown down the gauntlet to people and organisations to come up with new ways to get the nation cycling by launching two ‘challenge prizes’. Applications open today.

The exciting initiatives aim to encourage Brits to 'get on their bikes', and have been launched by the newly formed Centre for Challenge Prizes. They are:

• Hands off my bike - a challenge that is calling on people from all over the UK to come up with breakthrough innovations to make it more difficult to steal bikes. The winner will receive a £50,000 prize. Deadline for entry is 18 January 2013.
• The workplace cycle challenge -launched in conjunction with Challenge for Change and Cycling Touring Club (CTC), is calling on all UK workplaces with more than 10 employees to come up with new ways of increasing the number of employees cycling to and from work. The winner will receive a prize of £25,000 and an additional £25,000 will be available in development funding across competitor organisations. Deadline for entry is 12 October 2012.

Nick Wilkinson, CEO of Evans Cycles, says: 'The Cycling Challenges are a great way to get more people onto bikes, and enjoying their riding. Let's turn the UK into a cycle nation.'

This is an exciting year for cycling, as it takes centre stage with the Olympics and Paralympics, along with lots of fun activities such the Summer of Cycling campaign, all  raising the profile of cycling to encourage more people to get on their bikes. Whether as a means of getting around locally for individuals and families, or for the daily commute, cycling presents a healthy, environmentally friendly, low cost form of transport.  

The prizes have been designed to harness UK ingenuity to tackle the barriers that cyclists or would-be cyclists, face such as high rates of bike theft (one bike was stolen every minute last year) and perceptions that cycling is a leisure, rather than a commuting activity.  

For further information visit www.nesta.org.uk/challengeprizes

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Notes to editor 

For further information please contact Jan Singleton on 020 7438 2606/ jan.singleton@nesta.org.uk or Guy Bilgorri on 020 7438 2611/ guy.bilgorri@nesta.org.uk 

About Challenge Prizes

Challenge prizes, also called 'inducement' prizes, offer a reward to whoever can first, or most effectively, meet a defined challenge. They act as an incentive for meeting a specific challenge, rather than an award for past achievements.

Famous examples of challenge prizes include the Ansari X-Prize for manned private spaceflight, the 18th century Longitude Prize to help British navigators, or the 20th century Schneider Trophy for aviation, which inspired the Spitfire.

Offering cash prizes to incentivise breakthrough innovations is a time-honoured practice. Today, the practice of using prizes to stimulate innovation is back. As collaborative and open innovation grows in importance, and as web platforms enable crowdsourcing and collaboration on a massive scale, we are witnessing a revolution in the importance of challenge prizes for innovation. Experiments in spurring innovation with prizes are now taking place around the world, by governments, corporations and charities - tackling both technical and social challenges.

The Centre for Challenge Prizes was launched to bring together the growing expertise and interest in challenge prizes and to help build understanding of how challenge prizes can play an effective and strategic role in the stimulation and support of innovation.

About Nesta

Nesta is the UK's innovation foundation. We help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. We do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills.

We are an independent charity and our work is enabled by an endowment from the National Lottery.

Nesta Operating Company is a registered charity in England and Wales with a company number 7706036 and charity number 1144091. Registered as a charity in Scotland number SC042833. Registered office: 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE

www.nesta.org.uk